


Borderlands 2.85

by LunarboundLunaria



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Borderlands: Borderlands 2, Canon Relationships, Canon deaths, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Friendships, F/M, Finding out what it means to be a siren, Fix it as in add the tales characters to 2 lol, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Hints of Rhysha, Implied Sexual Content, Sexual Content, Siren Rhys, Sirens, Tales From the Borderlands, Tales characters become vault hunters, Tales characters take part in the Borderlands 2 story, Trans Character, Trans Rhys, Transphobic Vasquez, Vaughn and Rhys are best bros, Vaughn is just best bro, this will become a series at some point
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2020-09-30 19:48:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20452598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunarboundLunaria/pseuds/LunarboundLunaria
Summary: So, you want another story eh? Can't wait for more Borderlands 3 content, hm? Well, me neither, so sit down, shut up, and pay attention because I’m about to tell you a very contrived story of what really happened to Handsome Jack, Rhys, and all of Pandora.





	1. Earned Your Stripes

“See, the real story couldn’t be told until now, because it put some uh… important people in jeopardy. But I’ll tell it just for you… I’ll have to kill you afterwards though. Ha, just a little joke. The real story involves a couple of Hyperion stooges, two con artists, and a big secret.”

~

“Jack? Head surgeon here, I-”

“It’s Handsome Jack to you and this better be important enough to interrupt my entertainment.” The woman between his legs looked up at him and Jack shook his head “uh-uh, you keep going.”

“Uh… well, we have a situation up here in surgery…um…”

“Oh, just spit it out! … No, not you, hun, I’m talking to the idiot surgeon on the phone.”

“Do you know Rhys?”

“Reese? What like, the candy?”

“N-no sir, he’s one of the workers on Helios.” 

“You really think I remember any of the workers' names?”

“Well, seeing as you keep calling me ‘surgeon’, no. See, Rhys came in for sex reassignment surgery and… well, we found these during the operation.”

Jack’s ECHO device that was attached to his wrist, which he was using for the call, blinked with a notification from the head surgeon. He opened the document and holographic pictures floated out from his watch, pictures of a young man on an operation table with light blue, wavy tattoos on his left arm that went upwards and wrapped around the left side of his neck. There was no mistaking what they were, as these tattoos were always distinct in color and shape. Ideas began to form as soon as he saw the first glimpse of the siren tattoos, plans that had long been thought-out, plans that had been shown to him, began adjusting in his head to fit in this new discovery. After a long moment of silence accompanied by Jack’s unblinking eyes, he finally was able to pull his gaze away from the picture and he ran a hand through his stringy hair, making sure not to accidentally hit the mask he wore. He closed the pictures, and, after another pause of silence, he finally opened his mouth to speak to the surgeon.

“Hm… interesting, did he have them when he came in?”

“No sir, they appeared after we completed the operation…”

“So, you’re telling me that a worker of mine is a siren, and his tattoos didn’t come in until he went under the knife?” Jack’s voice sounded almost giddy, a complete one-eighty from when the call began.

“Right… Besides the tattoos, we’ve picked up some… power levels that well, only a siren could have.”

“Let me guess, they’re over nine thousand.”

“Way over, sir.”

“Well, this might be the best day ever!” Jack pushed the woman away from his as he stood up from his seat. She watched him as he went to his computer monitors, zipping his pants up as he went, “Hun, the guard by the door will give you your money. Now get out, I’m about to make my life far easier… wait, surgeon, do you happen to know if this kid likes me or…? Because, if he hates me, well, that just wouldn’t be good for the plans I’m planning right now.” Jack muttered, his fingers clicking on the keyboard as he began opening documents about this Rhys fellow.

“Well, he came in with a Handsome Jack t-shirt on, so I guess he likes you.”

Jack paused for a second, grimacing. “Huh… that’s not creepy at all… well, it should be expected, I guess, I am pretty awesome.”

“Uh-huh, sure…” The head surgeon muttered away from his own ECHO device before putting it close to his lips again, “What should we do, sir?”  
Jack opened up a new document on one of his monitors. This document held the vision he had for the future—a plan to rule Pandora and clean it of its bandit vermin, to save it from the corruption that was happening. Now that this Rhys, this code-monkey of his, was a siren well… the plans should be more… inclusive. “Listen, kiddo there doesn’t know he’s a siren… well, how about we keep that under wraps and say that his new tattoos were given to help hide the scarring? Handsome Jack issued it because he’s such a great guy…”

“But, his siren powers. When they come in—"

“AND Handsome Jack issued a full set of biotics to be given to him as well, for all his hard work. His left eye and his right arm, we’ll replace them with biotics, and you wire his siren powers through these new biotics so that, if he ever does use his powers, it seems as though it’s coming from his biotics.”

“Wha—well, why not cut his siren arm off?” 

“Because, idiot, have you ever cut a siren’s arm off? It could explode and destroy Helios! No, this is safer, cutting off his normal, human arm… and redirecting his powers is internal, so if anything blows up well, it’ll probably be his insides… besides, if we cut his siren arm off, what if he can’t use his powers? What if it just makes him… human? Normal? I wish to use his powers—I have no use for him if he isn’t a siren.”

“Well, then why not just lock him up and control him?”

“Listen, this guy, he has friends, they’ll wonder and look for him and then I have to kill them and then their friends will look for them and, you get it, right? Plus, I have a bad rep with sirens. I don’t need kiddo there looking into sirens and getting any ideas, and if I lock him up, then he’ll hate me, and become my enemy almost instantly… which, I do not need another siren enemy. Lilith was already nearly impossible to kill, and now I have another possible siren on Pandora that probably wants me dead, so, this way, he will still like me, and I can use his powers whenever I need to, and he’ll give himself over willingly. I can keep watch over him, in Helios, until I need him.”

“But we’ve never operated on a siren, we don’t know how to send his powers to a biotic arm and eye! We could die! He could die!”

“And? Then a baby will be born as a siren, and a baby can’t defeat me, or even try to defeat me! A baby is completely useless.” Jack paused his typing, tapping his finger gently against the keyboard as he tilted his head side-to-side and thought about what a baby siren could do, “Well, unless the baby had some cool robot fighting machine that they could control, but what are the odds of that? No, like, minus zero odds there. This way, we either end up with a siren on our side, which would be freaking epic, or he dies, and the plans stay the same, which isn’t as epic but still doesn’t hurt me. I can’t lose in this situation.”

“Wha… uh, but sir- “

“If I hear one more ‘but’ from you, I’ll paint you with siren tattoos and send you to Pandora with a giant reward for your death!”

“But—”

“Uh-uh-uh, be careful what you say here, or else, capeesh?”

“… Yes, sir. We’ll start right away sir.”

“Awesome, ciao.” Handsome Jack hung up the ECHO-call and continued to readjust his plans to now possibly include a new known siren.

~

“Handsome Jack wants us to operate on the siren. Give him biotics, an arm and an eye, and… connect his siren powers to said biotic arm and eye.” The surgeon said to his team after the call ended.

“How do we do that? We don’t know how to do that! And he’s been anesthetized for a while now, we should just wake him—"

“These are direct orders from Handsome Jack himself! Now, if you want to defy him, then go ahead! Me, I’ll take my chances operating on the siren.” The head surgeon declared, looking at his team over his surgical mask. His team looked at each, eyes moving quickly, some fidgeting their weight to one leg and then the other, others twirling their fingers together or wrapping their arms around themselves. Finally, the team looked back at the head surgeon and nodded, all deciding that they’d rather face an unknown operation on a siren than Handsome Jack’s wrath…

It was a grueling couple of hours as the surgeons slaved away. Some swapped out with other surgeons, tiring from the operation. There were nurses sitting on the floor, some asleep, others standing, waiting for when they were needed, all were trying everything to make Rhys’s siren powers go into his biotics. They found a way to test if it had worked or not by injecting a small amount of eridium into Rhys and watching the tattoos glow. The tattoos were the signal: if they didn’t glow, then there weren’t any powers flowing through his siren arm and the powers were instead going into his robotic arm and eye. Finally, after almost a cup of eridium and a lot of cutting and placing of possibly important body parts, his blue tattoos didn’t light up when the eridium was injected. The surgeon team cheered, high-fived, and finger-gunned each other as they finished their operation on Rhys and took him to his own room (and had a guard stationed nearby, just in case). The head surgeon called Handsome Jack back, his voice excited, but a hint of exhaustion hidden behind the enjoyment.

“Sir! Rhys… he survived. He’s still not awake yet, but… the surgery, the rewiring of his powers, it all worked! Well, we’re pretty sure it worked!” 

Jack smiled, placing his hands together and leaning down against his desk, staring at the monitors that he had been looking at since the surgery began. “See, I knew you could do it. Good work, everyone! Tell your team that they have the rest of the day off and I even ordered some cake to be delivered in Sector C room 4. This is a momentous day, as Hyperion has gained their own siren… I’ve gained my own siren.”

“Wow, thanks, boss! I’m just glad you’re happy, and to treat us to boot for a job well done! Was starting to think you were, well, a bit cruel, but it must just be the stress on Pandora. We’ll head down there right away!” Once the surgeon hung up, Jack called the guard station. 

“Hey, Handsome Jack here. So, can you release all of Sector C room 4’s contents into space in, say, oh, I don’t know, about ten minutes or so? Just, make sure the surgeon team is in there first. Yeah? Coolio.” Jack hung up the call and looked to one of his monitors which depicted his angel. “Oh, Angel, we still have a lot of eridium to pump into you, but it’ll all be worth it sweetie. Now that I have Rhys, now that I have another siren, well, once I conquer Pandora, I can stop using you and let you rest… and use him to conquer and clean up the other worlds. I’m sorry Angel, it’ll be over one day, we’re making the world safe, for you and me, and everything will go back to normal. I promise.” Jack caressed the monitor, letting a small sigh escape his lips before tightening his jaw in a grimace and narrowing his eyes. Now wasn’t the time for emotions, for caring, for anything sappy—Angel knew this had to be done. He knew this had to be done. This was to protect her and help him, and she wouldn’t always have to be his catalyst now that he had Rhys under his thumb. Jack turned all the monitors off except the one depicting his angel as he went to his bed, taking his mask off and laying it down beside her monitor. Once he left, Angel looked straight at the monitor, like she knew he had been watching her… like she knew everything.

~

Rhys’s eyes opened groggily, and he slowly looked down at his own body, but quickly realized his right arm and left eye felt… off. He looked at his right arm, which instead of flesh and bone was a sleek, Hyperion yellow and black metallic arm. He reached to touch his eye and felt the electronic ridges of where they placed the retina in, and then he noticed the blue tattoos on his other arm. He nearly jumped out of his hospital bed when he realized how different his body was, and he couldn’t help but let out a yelp at the tattoos, the metallic arm, and eye. Rhys quickly slammed the ‘help’ button on the hospital bed, pressing it about twenty times in quick succession before a Hyperion nurse came rushing in.

“What… why? What happened to my arm? And my eye? And, well, my other arm!? T-this isn’t what I asked for!” Rhys shouted, eyes wide, his flesh hand trembling as his metallic arm lay limply in bed beside him.

The nurse waited for Rhys to quiet down before stating, with a smile, “Rhys, you’re a very lucky young man. Handsome Jack has given you gifts for being so brave.”

“He… he has?” Rhys looked in bewilderment—his hero did this to him? Gave him these things as gifts? Really? Couldn’t he have given him a promotion or something with money involved?

“Handsome Jack called the surgeon team and directly stated that he wanted you to have Hyperion biotics put in, free of charge—only the most elite in Hyperion have them as they come with extraordinary powers, and he believes you to be amongst these elites in intelligence, looks, and management. These biotics can serve you well, you’ll just need to experiment with how you can utilize them.” The nurse glanced down at her clipboard before continuing, “Furthermore, he asked them to give you tattoos on your other arm, to help hide the scarring from your surgery. He said he wanted to give you these gifts because of how much of a hard worker you are and how important you are to Helios. Furthermore, he has issued free classes to you so you can learn how to get used to your new biotics! In fact, he said if you keep working as hard as you are, you might even become the manager and run Helios while he’s away on Pandora.”

“Wha—” Rhys paused when she stated that Handsome Jack thought he could become manager one day, something that had always been a dream of his, “W-wow… really? I…” Rhys’s voice cracked with emotion and he quickly cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his head as he searched for the words he wanted to say, “Uh, wow… I can barely even process… this is amazing. Handsome Jack gave me gifts, ME, a middle manager! That means… he knows me! Wow, that just shows how much he cares… I’ll work harder and do even better to make him proud!”

“That’s what we like to hear!” The nurse smiled, “Now, you have some visitors.” She left as Vaughn and Yvette came in, holding flowers and balloons.

Vaughn almost ran to Rhys’s side, grabbing his friend's shoulder, “Rhys, we heard all about the gifts Jack gave you. He must have heard how well you were doing or saw your numbers or something! All the way on Pandora too, wow, you’re lucky! Look, he even kept your heterochromia with the eye biotic, such attention detail!” Rhys smiled at this comment; he was proud of his heterochromia and it made him feel that much closer to Handsome Jack. Vaughn continued, “Oh, and we’re happy the surgery went well, of course.” Vaughn was chattering away, unable to hide his excitement for his best friend. Yvette placed the flowers and balloons beside Rhys.

“He couldn’t have given you a raise? You still owe me five lunches at least.” Yvette smiled, “Just playing with you. I’m happy that everything went well... hell, even better than well. You got recognized by Handsome Jack himself.”

“I know, isn’t great guys? I mean, I couldn’t have done any of this without your help. Now, we’re going to the top… all the way to the top, I’m going to become manager of Helios, just like Jack said I could do.” Rhys smiled at his friends, feeling a bit better and already growing accustomed to his new biotics as he managed to pick his biotic arm up slowly, moving the tips of the fingers. “I think our future at Hyperion is going to be bright from here on out!”


	2. The Trashman Cometh

It had been a few years since Rhys had his surgery. He was a quick learner when it came to his biotics, and soon after his surgery Rhys even began to forget his other arm was biotic now. Furthermore, he had learned how to use some powers that came with his biotics—his arm and eye could help him hack into things, something he already knew how to do before the surgery, but now he didn’t even need to sit in front of a computer and keyboard to do so; furthermore, he could hack things that weren’t even connected to computers now: guns, televisions, other people’s biotics, it was fun (and it got him in trouble a few times). His eye was also able to scan others and predict where something was going to go or land, which made it easy for Rhys to tell if Vaughn was going to make it into the trashcan with his trash-made “basketball” or not and place bets accordingly. His other surgery, the one he actually went to get, was also a grand success. He could finally live and be who he was supposed to be, and his Hyperion-issued tattoos helped cover up the scars, even though they ended up healing beautifully. Almost everyone on Helios was accepting of him, and he couldn’t imagine being anywhere else, except, well, in Helios’s manager’s office, sitting in that large chair in front of the best view on the space station. During the past few years, Jack had sometimes come to visit Helios, but Rhys didn’t get many chances to talk to his hero due to how busy he was and rushed to get back to Pandora and continue his liberating goal—which was an admiral goal, to Rhys. Pandora was filled with thugs, cannibals, and disgusting beasts, every Hyperion agreed that getting rid of these bandits and scum on Pandora was a worthy goal of their boss, one they all fully supported, or else they’d be thrown out into space, which, really, just made the decision to support Handsome Jack that much easier. Rhys had been working hard (and backstabbing harder) after Handsome Jack gave Rhys his gifts. Vaughn and Yvette helped Rhys out with both his legit and not-so-legit methods of getting ahead, of course. Now, he stood at one of Helios’s large windows, looking out into space, imagining the view from his soon-to-be office’s window. He ready to get the job he always dreamed of having since the day Jack himself—well, Jack’s message through a nurse—told Rhys that he could one day be the manager of Helios and run it while he was gone. This was the day that they had been waiting for, and now, he was about to get the promotion he deserved. He turned away from the window and looked at one of the many pictures of Jack that adorned the space station’s walls, and he copied his boss’s stance perfectly—hands on the hips, face tilted upwards, and that well-known Hyperion smug smirk spread across his face.

“Hey Rhys, still practicing your Handsome Jack stance huh? You’ve got it down to a T.” Vaughn’s voice came from further down the hallway, and Rhys quickly slouched back down, hands falling to his sides, and a blush replaced his smirk. 

“Well um yeah, you know, I figured I should look the part… uh, look like someone important or uh, stand like an important person—you know, forget it.” Rhys smiled as he walked towards Vaughn, also known as the finance friend, the money man, the cash crusader… or, you know, just Rhys’s best friend works, too. 

“Are you excited for your big day?” Vaughn asked him as Rhys approached Vaughn and the two walked together towards Henderson’s, AKA, the current man-in-charge-while-Jack-is-away, office.

“Not just mine, it’s our big day, buddy. And yeah, but also kind of queasy.” Rhys said, placing his biotic hand over his stomach with a chuckle.

Vaughn nodded, “Oh, me too! Maybe it was the burritos we ate last night while we stayed up and watched those chick flicks.”

Rhys shook his hold, rolling his eyes at his friend’s comment, “Um… I think it’s mostly nerves, but they're probably tied to the fact that I stayed up all night watching dumb movies and not practicing any acceptance speeches.”

Vaughn grasped his chest in a dramatic fashion as he pushed his glasses back upon his face and stated, “Hey man, those movies aren’t dumb. They’re masterpieces.”

Rhys chuckled at Vaughn’s reaction—although he was unsure if his friend was just acting or being serious. “Well, I really don’t think I can use any material from them to form a speech.”

“Legally Blonde had some encouraging words and ideas.”

“That it did, buddy, that it did. I’ll channel Elle Woods when I confront Henderson.”

“So, bro, what’s the first thing you’re going to buy with the money from your new job?” Vaughn asked as he wrapped his arms around himself, “If I was getting that paycheck, I think I’d get like, hm, a golden statue of myself put somewhere in this station!”

“Oh, that’s a good idea, I might have to steal it, or maybe we can get a statue of the both of us somewhere on Helios!”

“Come on… you can’t steal my idea, what would you get?” Vaugh shook his head at Rhys, not accepting that as his answer.

“But, eh, fine… hm, buy? Eh, money isn’t a big deal to me… it’s more about the recognition, you know? I’ll be that much closer to Handsome Jack as I follow in his footsteps.” Rhys couldn’t hide the smile that spread across his face as he thought about following in Jack’s footsteps, slowly making it up the ladder until he became equal to Handsome Jack himself.

Vaughn just cocked an eyebrow at Rhys’s answer. He knew Rhys was Handsome Jack’s number one fan, but seriously, who cares about recognition when you’re filthy rich? “Ooookaaaay, but money is kind of nice too. Trust me, I work with it. It’s super nice.”

Rhys just sighed, “Well, yeah, obviously I’m going to buy a car.”

“A car? Where will you drive it?”

“It’ll just be for looks, you know, just sit in my office to show off to everyone else who comes in. Show everyone that, yeah, I have a car for no other reason than to have one and rub it in your face!”

“Nice.” Vaughn said as they stopped at Henderson’s office, Rhys taking a deep breath and Vaughn noticed that his buddy’s breathing was getting quicker and shallower. Vaughn patted Rhys’s arm, “Hey, don’t get freaked out, ok? We’ve done a lot of things to get you here… a lot of things that still haunt me every time I sleep, but it’s all going to be worth it soon, so just keep imaging yourself in that big office.”

“Thanks, Vaughn, how do I look?” Rhys tilted his head back, a smug smirk crossing his face.

“You look like you hate my guts and want to see me burned in a dumpster while being eaten by a whale.”

“Perfect, I can really nail the Hyperion look!” With that, Rhys entered the office while Vaughn stayed outside. He couldn’t help but press his ear to the door and eavesdrop on the conversation between Rhys and Henderson. 

Vaughn listened at the door, a smile etched on his face, he couldn’t wait to hear the words ‘promoted’ and Rhys’s cheerful voice ring out; however, as the conversation inside dredged on, that look was replaced with a mix of emotions of anger, sadness, and worry. Apparently, Rhys’s rival and long-time number one enemy, Hugo Vasquez, had gotten the job before him by airlocking Henderson out into space, killing him. Vaughn’s hands bawled into fists as he grumbled, “Really? That’s all we had to do, we just had to airlock the man? I did so many… terrible things to people and ruined their lives and got some of them fired and airlocked and all we had to do to get the job was airlock this one guy? Can’t believe Hugo thought of doing that and we didn’t…” Vaughn physically flinched away from the door when he heard Vasquez tell Rhys he was promoted to janitor, but he quickly placed his ear back to the door to hear more, both intrigued and worried. His skin paled when he heard what sounded like Rhys getting punched in the face (by now it was a familiar sound to Vaughn). Vaughn continued to listen, biting his lips and getting even more worried for his best friend when Vasquez began to make a couple of transphobic remarks towards Rhys, even using the wrong pronoun on purpose multiple times. Vaughn was certain there was no one in the space system that he’d ever hate more than Vasquez. Vaughn pulled himself away from the door, muttering to himself, “Ok, alright, Vaughn, time to go in there, time to save your friend, time to… uh… tell Vasquez what a… jerk he is! That Rhys deserves the world! Ok, on three, one… two…” As Vaughn headed to open the door, the door opened, and Vaughn jumped backward, cupping his face in his hands, his glasses all caddywonkers, “OhmygodI’mso—” He paused when he saw Rhys standing in the doorway. “Oh… Rhys… I thought it was… uh…” Vaughn stumbled, pushing his glasses back up and standing up straight. Rhys said nothing as he slammed the door shut, and Vaughn noticed that his friend’s nose was much redder now and a bit of blood was trickling down from one of his nostrils to his lips. Furthermore, Vaughn noticed the tears in the corners of his eyes and the trembling lips of his friend, who said nothing as he began quickly walking away from Hugo’s office, down the hallway. Vaughn followed behind, trying to catch up to Rhys, as he said, “He can’t… he can’t do this to us!” 

“Oh, but he did.” While Rhys looked as though he was on the verge of crying, his voice was pure, seething rage. In fact, Vaughn couldn’t even remember the last time Rhys cried, usually his sorrow was replaced with anger. “Now everything is bad! Life sucks and is meaningless! We’re ruined, Vaughn!”

“I don’t understand—" Vaughn stopped talking as he watched Rhys kick over a trashcan, prompting an alarm to go off as an electronic feminine voice came over the coms.

“Janitor Rhys, please go to department A to pick up trash. Because that is your job now, to pick up trash, with your hands.” Yvette appeared around the corner, staring at a seething Rhys and an anxious Vaughn who was trying to calm his buddy down while passing employees stole glances at the pair as they quickened their walking.

“So, things didn’t work out apparently huh?” Yvette shifted her wait, placing a hand on her right hip.

“Ass-quez threw Henderson out an airlock and promoted Rhys to janitor…” Vaughn grumbled.

“Oh, well, does that mean I’m not getting my lunch today?” Yvette asked, playfully, her eyebrows raised as she watched the scene in front of her.

“Not today, and maybe not ever again! You know how much janitors make here, right? Zilch. Nada. Nothing.” Rhys answered, shaking his head. The tears were gone, the blood was gone, the anger was never going away until Vasquez was shot dead with a shotgun or something more foreshadowing.

“What!? No free lunches ever again!? Ooh, we have to get back at Vasquez!” Yvette growled, slamming her foot down, her heel clicking loudly on the floor as she gently punched the nearby wall. Neither Rhys nor Vaughn could tell if she was playing or was truly angry, but she did give them an idea.

“Yeah… get back at Vasquez. That’s perfect, Yvette! We’ll get back at him! Get our revenge!” Vaughn’s anxious grimace turned into a smirk, the idea of showing Vasquez up making him giddy.

“Oh? How will you two do that?” She asked, placing her hands on her hips once again, tilting her head. “You have a plan?”

“We-uh, um… Rhys, you got any ideas?”

“Oh, do I have an idea. I overheard some interesting details and managed to hack his computer… see, ‘Ass-quez’ is planning on buying a vault key on Pandora. So, the plan is, we steal his d-“ Rhys suddenly stopped talking, jumped, and screamed, causing his two friends to do the same.

“What!? What’s wrong with you!?” Yvette asked quickly, looking around for the reason why Rhys jumped and screamed.

“Rhys? Buddy? You ok?” Vaughn asked, trying to place his hand on Rhys, but Rhys was looking around, wide-eyed, and moving around the hallway quickly. He then turned towards the two of them and slowly took a few steps back before running away from them. Vaughn and Yvette stared after him in stunned silence before Vaughn turned to her, a nervous smile on his face as he scratched his head, “Uh… maybe he just… needs some time alone? Maybe he thought of the best idea ever… yeah, an idea so great, that it even spooked him! I’m sure he’s fine… wherever he went.”

Yvette didn’t look too worried about Rhys as she turned to look at Vaughn. “Uh-huh, yeah, sure. Hey, did you lose your job, too?”

“No, I didn’t even go in to confront Henderson with him! I risked so much for Rhys to get that position, but I’m kind of the guy behind the scenes, you know? That mysterious figure who helps the protagonist reach his dreams, like in those cool movies!”

“What movies?”

“Um… well, it sounded better in my head to say, ‘like in those cool movies’, because you were giving me a really weird look, but I-I didn’t have a particular movie in mind.”

“Yeah ok, whatever, well, since you didn’t lose your job you want to buy me lunch while Rhys figures out his scary good plan?”

“I... y-uh-sure, I’ll… I’ll buy you lunch.” Vaughn said to her before mumbling under his breath, “Dang-it Rhys you better get your old job back or have an amazing plan to turn our lives around for the better so you can start paying again.”


	3. Banished to Hell

Rhys had just thought of the perfect plan to get back at Ass-quez and was about to blow his friends’ minds. “We steal his d-“

A very fuzzy image of a young woman suddenly popped into his vision as well as a voice that softly said, “Rhys,” before disappearing. The vision of her made Rhys jump and scream, making his other friends jump and scream as well. His heart pounded in his ears as he began searching for the woman, his loud heartbeat and quickening thoughts washing whatever Yvette and Vaughn were saying; however, he soon realized two things, one that the woman he saw was not around, and two, both his friends hadn’t seen her. Once he realized these two things he quickly ran to his Hyperion-issued bedroom. It was an incredibly small one room bedroom with a kitchenette, a double bed, and another small room which housed a toilet, sink, and a tiny shower. The workers weren’t allowed to paint the walls, which were a mixture of grey and yellow, but Rhys had found his own way of decorating by hanging lots of posters. Mostly of Jack. Which is and always will be creepy. Rhys stumbled to his bed, trying to calm his heart and breath, as he rubbed his eyes. As soon as he pulled his hands away and opened his eyes again, she was there, in a digitalized form, her face floating in front of him, but also she wasn’t there, she was just a hologram, a digitalized face. It was still fuzzy, but he was able to make out her black hair, shaved on one side, and her large, blue eyes which were staring straight at him.

“I know you have questions…” She spoke, her voice still soft, almost static-y. 

Rhys leaned his forearms against his knees and chuckled nervously, “Oh, do you really think I have questions? Is that the line you’re going to open with?”

The woman’s eyes narrowed as she turned her head, looking away from Rhys, “Well, I had a lot of time to think about how I would start talking to you and decided that that was the best conversation opener. Sorry to disappoint you on whatever ideal fantasy you had of a woman in your head suddenly appearing and speaking to you for the first time.”

“Uh… I’m sorry?”

The woman sighed, closing her eyes for a few beats before looking back at Rhys, her eyes no longer narrowed, “No, no. I’ve just been a bit… stressed, lately. Look, Rhys, we don’t have long to talk, ok?”

Rhys was twiddling his fingers, “Uh… you know my name? What… what do you want?” He managed to ask through his quickening breath. He couldn’t make out what was happening and was a little freaked out that he miiiiight be going insane, but since he couldn’t get rid of the woman in his head without possibly causing serious harm to his own brain, he was going to have to listen to whatever she wanted him to hear.

“Rhys, you’re in danger.” 

Rhys sat up straight, “Ass-quez!? Is he planning something?”

The woman furrowed her brow, “As.. uh… no. I don’t know who that is, he has an unfortunate name though. Listen. I can’t tell you too much without endangering yourself, but you need to come to Pandora.”

Rhys shook his head at her comment, leaning back on his bed, his arms supporting his weight, “What!? This… that’s a death sentence! You’re not working for Az-quez are you… no, he isn’t that smart… listen, lady, I’m more likely to get hurt on Pandora than I am here!” 

“You think that, but it isn’t true. Helios in dangerous for you. Hyperion is dangerous for you. Pandora is safe. Go to Sanctuary Rhys, that’s where you’ll be safe!” She pleaded with him.

“And why should I listen to you?” 

She paused, biting her lips for a moment before replying with a sigh, “Because… the reason why I know your name is… I… know Jack. Do you trust Jack? Then trust me.”

Rhys stopped talking for a moment, suddenly surprised and interested when she spoke his boss’s name. “How… do you know Handsome Jack?”

She nodded, “He’s my… ah, I’m his… partner… in uh, his liberating Pandora goals. I’m helping him. Jack’s on Pandora. He’s… making it safer. You can help, too. At Sanctuary. Trust me, I wouldn’t come to you without his… urging, Rhys.”

Rhys sat on his bed, mulling over what the woman just said to him. “I… don’t know about this, I don’t know…”

“I can’t prove much to you, I know, and I was afraid you’d say that. Well, I’ll get you to Sanctuary one way or another Rhys. I’m sorry we had to meet like this, but Rhys, I need you to keep this meeting between us a secret; else, well, they will kill you. Goodbye for now.” With that, the woman vanished from his view. 

Rhys sat on his bed, not moving for a while, thinking over what she had told him. What did she mean? Helios and Hyperion are currently dangerous? Maybe she met now with Vasquez in control… yeah, maybe that was it. She didn’t know his name, Vasquez, but she could sense the danger Rhys was in. But why him? Vaughn was as in much trouble as he was. Then it dawned on him, she said that she worked with Handsome Jack. Jack knew Rhys and wanted Rhys to be manager, but Vasquez beat him to it, and Jack must have his hands tied on Pandora and isn’t able to step in and fix this error because he’d have to come back to Helios and sign some documents and make some speech and he is far too busy making Pandora a better place-therefore, Pandora, which was going to be a safe-haven soon when Handsome Jack completed his goals, would be better for Rhys than here. That had to be it! Rhys felt incredibly smart for figuring out everything but was still left with a huge decision—go to Pandora, or stay on Helios, it seemed like such an insane notion, even if it was supposedly safer there, Pandora was alien to everyone on Helios. He heard a knock at his door, and in came Yvette and Vaughn.

“Hey Rhys, we were worried about you… we already ate lunch and we still hadn’t seen you, so we came to find you.” Vaughn sat beside his friend, placing an arm around him while Yvette stood by the door. 

“I… had something crazy happen to me.” Rhys sighed, “Listen—this will sound, well, crazy, but… just hear me out, we might have to go to Pandora.” 

“Hah! Alright, Rhys has lost it.” Yvette laughed as she shook her head while Vaughn looked at his friend, blinking a few times, frowning at what Rhys had just said.

“Pandora? Rhys, I think you might need to go to the clinic… Vasquez’s punch might’ve hurt your head.” Vaughn reached around, feeling Rhys’s forehead, looking for a fever.

Rhys pushed his hand away, “I’m serious! I had a woman tell me.”

“What woman? When? Did she come into your room? We didn’t see a woman leave here.” Yvette crossed her arms, looking at Rhys as if he was speaking a different language entirely.

“No! Well, yes, uh, kind of. It’s complicated…” Rhys wanted to tell his friends about her, but she asked for him to keep their conversation a secret. But he could trust his friends, right? “She was in my—”

A loud alarm cut Rhys’s words off as it echoed throughout all the space station. Yvette quickly pulled up a digital screen on her ECHO watch and read the meaning for the alarm out to Rhys and Vaughn as she had more access than both boys did (unless they hacked their way in). “Code delta. Apprehend Rhys, keep him alive. I can’t read anymore; I don’t have the right access. What the hell did you do Rhys? I mean, damn, you’ve never done anything that’s warranted a code delta! They want to arrest you, Rhys!” She looked at him with narrowed eyes, closing her ECHO watch’s document as she placed her hands on her hips.

“What!?” both Vaughn and Rhys gasped.

“I… I didn’t do anything!” Rhys stammered, jumping up from his bed. He began to pace around his small room quickly.

“Rhys… they want to capture you…” Vaughn said softly, staying on the bed by himself, staring blankly in front of him, eyes widened.

“We need to leave your room, now!” Yvette ran over to Rhys and grabbed his hand and began yanking him out of his room. Rhys managed to reach back grab Vaughn’s hand and pulled him along, as Vaughn was still in shock at everything that was happening.

The trio made their way through Helios, hiding from the guards who were searching for Rhys and staying out of sight of the many cameras placed around the station. Thankfully Yvette knew where to go and what to do, and Rhys was able to quickly hack any camera that was in their way using his biotic arm. She led them to a shuttle, gaining access with her Hyperion card. “You have to leave Helios.” 

“And go where?” Vaughn asked, meekly. Rhys let his hand go when they entered the room, and Vaughn stood completely still, his legs seemingly not working.

“Leave Helios… go… to Pandora…” Rhys mumbled. “That’s what I was told. It’d be dangerous for me here… I need to seek Handsome Jack out and get his help! He’ll fix this, and in the meantime, I can hide out on Pandora.” 

“Pandora is suicide.” Yvette griped as her fingernails clicked against the keyboard, “There are other planets I can send you to that will be safer than that place!”

“Like what Yvette? The moon, Elpis? No, that’d be the first place they look! Pandora is large and dangerous; it’ll be difficult for any Hyperion to follow me and find me there…”

Yvette sighed, her lips curled in a snarl as she spoke through clenched teeth, “Well, it just so happens that one of these shuttles was already going to Pandora…” She clearly wasn’t keen on the Pandora idea. Rhys felt a bit queasy about it himself, but it seemed as though the most logical place to hide out. Well, ‘logical’ as in a woman in his head told him to go there, but still, more logical than landing on some planet that might be even worse than Pandora. Maybe that woman knew this was going to happen? Or… maybe she caused it? Rhys didn’t have enough time to think about the matter, he had to get on that shuttle quickly. 

“I’m not going with you.” Yvette stated, standing back up once she got the shuttle ready to launch, “I’ll send your shuttle off, and then that’s it.”

“That’s fine Yvette, we need you here. You can be our inside-man and keep tabs on Hyperion while also helping us if we get into trouble on Pandora!” Rhys exclaimed.

“Wow, you really think I have a lot of power huh? Fine, I’ll help you as much as I can, but they’ll probably start watching calls when you escape. But if you live Rhys, I swear, you’re going to owe me so much for the rest of your life.” Yvette was at the control panel, the shuttle heading to pandora was open and ready to take off. “Here, Pandora’s dangerous, so take this.” She shoved a baton into his hands. “You’ll probably need it more than I do.”

“Thanks Yvette, I owe you all the lunches in the world, and I promise I’ll pay on that. Handsome Jack will help clean this whole mess up, get rid of Ass-quez, and get me reinstated in the job that I’m supposed to have here!” Rhys began walking towards the shuttle, hooking the baton to his belt.

“And how do you know that?” She sighed.

“I… just do. Uh, trust me.” He smiled. “Well, I guess this is goodbye for now.”

“Whoa! You’re not leaving here by yourself!” Vaughn finally seemed to awake from his dazed state as he grabbed Rhys’s arm. “I’m… if you’re… going to get eaten by cannibals on Pandora, I’ll be getting cooked right beside you, bro!”

“Jeez, thanks for the vote of confidence there Vaughn. But are you su-“

“There’s not time for you two to argue this, get in or don’t! if you stay too long here, you’ll get caught and that’ll be it for you!” Yvette snapped as she made a slicing of the throat motion, and she was right. They couldn’t stay here any longer. Rhys nodded at Vaughn, Vaughn nodded at Rhys, and both quickly got into the shuttle.


	4. Hello Hollow

Do you know how there are silver linings in everything? Well, Rhys might be blacklisted from the space station Helios, he might be hunted for the rest of his life, and he might be going to the most dangerous place in the world, but at least he’s doing it all in style. The shuttle they ended up taking was a sick black, red, and yellow car with leather seats, wood detailing, a hi-fi stereo, and just all the works you can imagine. Rhys and Vaughn were shot down towards Pandora, and as soon as they entered its atmosphere, the shuttle that protected the car broke apart, revealing the exterior of the vehicle, and the car landed on the ground with as little as a thud. Honestly, this descent would be perfect with some hype music—like in a video game opening where the protagonist and his sidekick began their journey. Rhys was thinking about what music would fit best for their heroic escape when the car jolted and something big rolled across the windshield. Vaugh let out a gasp as Rhys’s mind came back to the reality that they were on Pandora and were probably going to die instantly.

“What was that!?” Rhys asked as he slammed his foot hard against the breaks, causing the car to turn to the side as it screeched to a halt, dust flying out from behind the vehicle.

Vaughn had sunk down into the passenger car seat, his knees were drawn up to his forehead as he cradled them, “I… oh God I don’t know. A really ugly person? I think… urp… we killed it… I’m going to be sick; I’m going to be sick, ohhhh no we’re murderers already. We now fit in with the Pandoran thugs.”

Rhys investigated the rear-view mirror and breathed a sigh of relief, letting out a small chuckle, “Relax, Vaughn, it was just a skag… they don’t… uh, feel pain, because they’re too ugly to feel.” Rhys did his Hyperion smirk as Vaughn began to calm down, pulling his legs down.

“If… you say so,” He looked out of the passenger window, “I still feel really bad…”

“Vaughn, it’s Pandora, things die here. We just… roll with it, ok? We can’t feel bad for everything that dies here.” Rhys tried to comfort his friend the best way he knew how, which wasn’t good, but he knew Vaughn was going to have a hard time adjusting to Pandora, more so than himself. Rhys caught the glare that Vaughn gave him, a glare which meant that Vaughn didn’t agree with Rhys but didn’t want to argue with his best friend. Rhys knew this look well, but he didn’t bring it up with Vaughn as he also didn’t want to get into an argument now, while driving in Pandora, and instead went back to focusing on driving. The car took off once again as the skag behind them stood and began limping away.

After a long time of awkward silence, Vaughn finally piped up, “So, where are we going?”

“Sanctuary, I think. I typed it into the car during the descent, so we’ll be there soon.”

“Why Sanctuary? I’ve never even heard of it… how did you hear of it again?” Vaughn asked, glancing at his friend.

“I uh… uh, just heard it in passing one day, ok? Sanctuary is a town that’s following in… Handsome Jack’s footsteps and trying to help clean the planet up, just like him. At least, that’s what I heard.” 

“Really? Wow, I would’ve never guessed these bandits could do something like that!” 

“Yeah well, y’know, people can surprise you…”

The two continued driving through the desert tundra of Pandora, making sure to avoid any more skags that they found on their way. Throughout their drive, Rhys accidentally ran into what looked like a cactus, which then electrocuted them and their car. He also had to drive away from some people chasing him in messed up vehicles with car parts duct-taped on the outside of their vehicles with miniguns attached to the top of them and he even had to drive away from a helicopter (they have those on Pandora? And the psychos here can apparently fly them? What?). They finally pulled up to Sanctuary. Which was a cave. And which had a sign outside of it that said, ‘Hollow Point’.

“Um, I don’t think this is Sanctuary unless they had a name-change,” Vaughn stated.

“Oh, you think so huh?” Rhys stated sarcastically before muttering “Are you kidding me?” He put the car into park and stared disbelievingly at the cave. Vaughn was looking at the GPS system on the car. “Hollow Point? This is supposed to be Sanctuary, not whatever a ‘Hollow Point’ is!” 

“Ohhh I see what’s wrong. Rhys, look, the GPS system goes off coordinates, not… not names. It mistook you putting in ‘Sanctuary’ as coordinates to here apparently.”

“That’s idiotic.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be good at technology?”

“Well I-yeah, I just didn’t look at it close enough, I just thought that it would be updated enough to go by the name of the town.”

“Seems less like the system is idiotic and more like you’re the—”

“Let’s just put the coordinates to Sanctuary in there…” Rhys murmured, lifting his eyebrows as a challenge for Vaughn to finish his sentence.

Vaugh just shrugged at him before opening the car door and getting out, “I’m going to stretch my legs.” 

Rhys nodded as he pulled up a digital screen on his robotic arm, “Alright let’s see… coordinates to Sanctuary… my ECHO Map should show me that…”

“Rhys, I don’t think the car can drive there…” Vaughn said as he opened the door and got back into the passenger seat.

“Why?” Rhys tilted his head as he inputted the new, correct, directions into his ECHO device.

“It’s really beat up.” Vaughn said, scratching his head, “Like, really beat up. The fender is completely smashed and there are bullet holes all over the place. Plus, the paint on the sides is almost all gone.”

“Really? I thought I did a pretty good job at dodging those psycho’s bullets!”

“Uh… I remember when they were chasing us you ducked below the steering wheel and screamed the whole time while driving into pretty much everything.” Rhys gave him an annoyed look again and Vaughn quickly added, “But you did better than I could, I can’t even drive.”

“Yeah, all those video games with the steering wheel as a controller finally paid off… crap, I don’t think we even have enough gas to get there.” Rhys muttered, glancing at the gas tank gauge, which the dial pointed at 'E'.

“Well, should we check out Hollow Point? Maybe they have someone who can at least fill the car up.”

“That seems like our only option buddy.” Rhys sighed, “Listen, these people are going to be the thug-kind of people—different than Sanctuary. We have to be on edge and watch out for each other.”

“Dude don’t worry. I always got your back. If we get attacked, we’ll just run away screaming together.”

“And hopefully they’ll focus on you, not me.” Rhys laughed as Vaughn just chuckled, his eyes wide as he crossed his arms across his body, “Great plan as always Vaughn.” Rhys smiled as he slowly drove the car into Hollow Point. Which wasn’t as bad as they thought. It was worse. Firstly, who builds a town in a cave? Savages do. Secondly, people were peculiar. Most of them were drugged out of their mind, and a few bodies laid about—most with stab wounds. Rhys and Vaughn glanced out the windows whenever they passed by anyone and grimaced. They all looked terrifying—most wore masks, which admittedly looked much better than those who didn’t wear masks. 

Rhys pulled up to a large opened garage with a sign that said ‘Catch-A-Ride’ and had an illuminated woman on the sign. “This looks like the place to get your car fixed. Hopefully” Rhys said as he parked the car and got out with Vaughn. Before the boys could go in, they saw the possible owner of the joint walk out of a back room and overheard him talking to himself.

“Ah man, I hope she can take care of the old place by herself. Ain’t been able to keep it runnin’ as I want. Stretched thin with all my new shops openin’ and kinda just want to stay at Sanctuary fer awhile. Been missin’ ma and Rolland since bein’ way out here.” He had a strong country drawl and was wearing blue jean overhauls. He was shorter than Rhys, about Vaughn’s height, and had a towel thrown over his shoulder and a clipboard which he was staring at. His face was dirty with splashes of oil. 

“Oh great, an inbred…” Vaughn sighed, “Rhys, this is going to be your department… I’ll handle the money, you just convince him to do it for as little as you can, ok?” 

“I can do that.” Vaughn began to walk into the garage, but Rhys grabbed his arm, “Wait! Vaughn, your shirt.”

“What about it? Do I have something on it?”

“No, it says Hyperion…”

“So? Your jacket does too.”

“Crap.” Rhys began taking his black jacket off. “The people here don’t like Hyperion, remember? They think Handsome Jack is doing them a disservice instead of helping them. C’mon, we can’t go in there with the Hyperion logo basically tattooed on us.” Rhys put his jacket in the trunk of the car, leaving just his long-sleeved light blue striped shirt and red tie on, which his tie was long to the point that they could be tucked into his paints—and they might’ve been, the jury is still out on that.

Vaughn glanced around nervously. “But uh… Rhys, I don’t have a shirt under my button up and the Hyperion branding has been embroidered on and-” Rhys shook his head slightly. 

“Vaughn, we’re on Pandora. Clothes here are optional. Embrace it, buddy, embrace the mini psycho in you.” Rhys smiled.

“I… don’t know…”

“Please Vaughn? I don’t want to go in there without you, I need you, buddy, we’re a duo in this!” 

That convinced Vaughn, which Rhys knew it would since they’ve been friends they’ve stuck together through thick and thin. Vaughn unbuttoned his shirt and tied it inside-out around his head; however, this created a new problem.

“Whoa.” Rhys gasped, wide-eyed.

Vaughn looked at Rhys, his eyes darting around, “Um, what’s wrong?”

“Have you been turning into a green man when you get angry? Because you must’ve been hulking up on your weights!”

Vaughn stared at him. “What.”

“I-uh, it means, you must be getting yourself excited to work out and be dedicated to it? Like, you know, you’re uh, swole dude. Like, extremely muscular.”

“Oh that, yeah, I installed an exercise bike under my desk.” Vaughn waved off Rhys’s comment.

“Whoa. He’s ripped. Also, was what you said supposed to be funny or a pick-up line or what? Because that kind of just came out sounding weird. No offense or anything.” A woman’s voice suddenly spoke as Rhys saw her again, the black-haired lady in her digital like form, but this time the image was clearer. He somehow suppressed a scream and instead just let out a small yelp, jumping at her sudden appearance.

“You ok? Uh, Rhys?” Vaughn looked around nervously, scared from his friend’s reaction. Rhys bit his lip seeing his friend scared. If this was going to become a normal thing between this woman and him, which he really hoped it wouldn’t be, then he was going to have to stop jumping every time she appeared, for Vaughn’s sake.

“Yeah! Yeah, um, one second, I need some alone time for a few minutes.” Rhys looked around, knowing that finding said alone time would be difficult. There was only one safe place for Rhys to go for his alone time, which he also just realized how weird it was for him to be requesting alone time at this moment and how shady it made him look. He gave Vaughn a very awkward smile as he slowly got into the car, closing the door behind him. Vaughn crossed his arms and looked away from the car, obviously confused why his friend was acting so strangely and secretive all of a sudden. Rhys felt guilty, as he usually told Vaughn everything, but he still wasn’t certain how to approach this with him, or even if he should.

“What are you doing here? What do you want?” He asked the woman in a harsh whisper, eyes narrowed at her

“I was just checking up on you, to see if you were, um, ok.” She averted her eyes.

“You mean alive?” Rhys said sarcastically, raising an eyebrow at her.

She paused for a second before nodding, “Well… yes.”

Rhys pointed at himself, “As you can see, I am, in fact, alive. No one has any faith in me apparently.”

“Listen, Rhys, you need to go to Sanctuary-“

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m working on it. Not like you’re helping me.”

This made her pause for a moment, “I’ll help you the best I can… I can hack things and-“

“Wow, you can hack things. News flash lady so can I.” Rhys rolled his eyes. 

“You… can?”

“Yeah, Handsome Jack’s biotics make it easier for me to do… are you really with Handsome Jack? Wouldn’t you have known that?”

She looked annoyed now, “Handsome Jack’s biotics…” She mumbled, before clearing her throat, “Yes, I am with Jack. We just don’t… see each other in person all that often.” 

“Well, he would be more helpful than you are…”

“Rhys! God da… darn it, I’m trying, ok? I’ll… I’ll try harder, ok? This is new to me, well, kind of…” She sighed, “I’m sorry. I should’ve checked in with you earlier, I should’ve directed you to Sanctuary, I’ll do that from now one.”

“So, this is going to be a normal thing?”

“Yes, Rhys. You will need my help, and whether you want it or not, I am going to help you.”

“Help me help Handsome Jack help Pandora?”

“Uh yep. That’s… what I’m doing. Helping you, and Jack, and Pandora, all at the same time. I’ll give you more of my attention from here on out.”

Rhys paused for a moment before asking, “What’s your name? You know mine, but what’s yours?”

“That’s unimportant.”

“If I meet with Jack while I’m here, I’d like to thank him for sending you to help us.” 

“I… you will meet with Jack, I promise. Just, later, and not at Sanctuary. Don’t even mention Jack at Sanctuary, it’s um, they like to focus on bettering Pandora and not… making an idol of Jack, you know? It’s sort of like bad luck, in a way. I know, it’s strange, but all of Pandora is strange, so just go with it, for… Jack’s sake.” 

“If that’s what he wants, then I’ll do it.”

She looked pleased with this, “Well, good luck Rhys. I’ll communicate with you more and try to help you and your muscular friend throughout your journey in Pandora, but I do need to rest on occasion.” She gave a small smile before adding, “My… name is Angel, by the way.” And with that, she disappeared.

“… Thank you, Angel.”


	5. Catch Us Later, Suckers!

“You alright, bro?” Vaughn asked as he watched his friend get out of the car.

“Yeah, just uh…” Rhys held the car door tightly, debating whether to tell Vaughn about Angel, and he decided quickly that he wasn’t going to mention her yet, “Just had to do some thinking… you know this is a lot for me to take in.”

Vaughn laughed nervously, “I’m so glad you said that—you’ve been playing it so cool and I’ve been trying to play it cool but honestly? I just want to cry. So bad. Like, I’m probably going to die here you know?” Vaughn rubbed his arms, glancing around to make sure no one else was around to hear him say that or kill him.

“Yeah, I feel you, buddy.” Rhys closed the car door, he grimaced at what Vaughn said, and stated determinedly, “I’m not letting anything happen to you, I promise.” Rhys held out his pinky.

“A pinky promise? You know you got to keep those, right?”

“I know I can keep this one.” This made Vaughn clearly cheer up, a smile spreading across his face as he wrapped his pinky finger around Rhys’s, and the two embraced in a bro-hug. “Thanks, dude.”

“Don’t mention it. Actually, don’t mention it to anybody here, they’ll probably break my pinkies off for fun…”

“I won’t! Now, let’s get our car fixed.” Vaughn stated as Rhys had filled him with determination. The two walked into the garage. The inside had two sections for vehicles to sit upon as they got fixed, one section was taken up by an old-looking caravan, and the other was empty. The walls were decorated with posters that had images of what you’d expect a mechanic would like—women, vehicles, and beer.  
A lone radio played some propaganda-sounding commercial in the corner, and a machine where the two could change their car’s paint job sat on the far back wall. Oil, lube, cloths, and mechanical tools sat around in no particular order. The mechanic looked up from his notepad and threw it to his side when he saw Rhys and Vaughn.

“Hey, fella’s, welcome to Scooter’s Catch-a-Ride, what’chu guys—whoa.” His mouth dropped open at the sight of Vaughn’s abs.

“Yeah, I had the same reaction when I saw them, they’re pretty spectacular huh?” Rhys said, nodding at Scooter’s reaction.

“Guys, let’s uh, stop staring, please, I get nervous and then I have to pee, and I doubt there are bathrooms here—”

“Ok, Vaughn, ok, we get it, buddy.” Rhys chuckled as he noticed the Southern-accented mechanic had reached his hand out for a handshake. Rhys contorted his mouth, trying to not show their pure disgust at how dirty his hand was.

“Nice ‘ta meet y’all, don’t get too many friendlies ‘round ‘ere, ‘specially none as well and proper seeming as y’all!”

Rhys felt Vaughn elbow him, “Shake his hand…” Vaughn said teeth clenched, in a low voice to Rhys. Rhys sighed, taking a big gulp, and shook the man’s hand.

“Nice to uh… meet you. I’m Rhys, and—urp… that’s Vaughn.” He said, trying to hold the vomit back for later. When the mechanic let go, Rhys glanced at his hand and saw the black and brown smudges of mechanical work, possibly incest, and pure Pandora grossness—ew.

“If y’all couldn’t tell, I’m Scooter.” He stopped mid-sentence, crossing his arms and smiling as he turned to face you, reader.

Rhys and Vaughn looked around curiously, “Uh… what are you doing?” Vaughn asked.

“I uh… nuthin’. As I was sayin’, what can I do for some fine ‘fellas such as yerselves?” Scooter said as he turned back to face them.

“We need our car fixed,” Vaughn stated, pointing back at the black sports car that was outside the garage. Scooter walked to where he could see the car and shook his head.

“Dang man, what did y’all get into?”

“Everything,” Rhys said flatly.

“Bandits! Pirates, probably. Psychos. Creatures that shall haunt my dreams for the rest of my life…” Vaughn said, counting on his hand as he listed the creatures they ran into.

“Yup, that’s Pandora fer ‘yah. So y’all ain’t ‘round here?”

“Uhh…” Vaughn stumbled.

“No, we’re not. We’re from the moon, you know, Elpis. Thought we’d move here.” Rhys cut in, smoothly.

“Elpis? Why, I got a lady comin’ from there to run this here shop! Can’t keep all my stuff runnin’ by myself.” Scooter said, smiling, but the smile soon turned into a frown. “Listen, that car there got busted up. I can fix it and shouldn’t take too long but… it’s gonna cost ‘ya few grand.”

“Well, we don’t have that kind of money, I think we have a hundred maybe?” Vaughn said as he smiled weakly. “Will you do it for a hundred?”

“Nah man that’s too little. You moved to Pandora without money?”

“Yeah, I should’ve grabbed some more when we left,” Vaughn muttered, and Rhys knew he was talking about Helios.

“Isn’t there anything we can do for you to pay for it other than use money?” Rhys said, quickly wracking his own brain to try to figure out how to get Scooter to fix their car.

“Nah man, I ain’t into guys, nuthin’ personal just not my preference.”

“What? No, no no no, not that. I mean, anything else but that.” Rhys said quickly, Vaughn nodding with Rhys’s answer.

“Listen, I’m sorry guys, but I need money for my time and labor. Can’t help ‘ya.” Scooter rubbed the back of his neck as he began walking away from Rhys and Vaughn.

“Darn it! How are we supposed to get to Sanctuary now, Rhys?” Vaughn groaned, looking worried as he knew they didn’t have a plan B. Hell, there barely had a plan A.

“We’ll figure it out V—”

“Hang on, Sanctuary?” Scooter said, turning back to face them.

“Yeah, that’s… where we’re moving.” Rhys said quickly.

“I’m actually headin’ to Sanctuary as soon as she comes and takes the keys to the shop, which is s’pposed to be soon… how ‘bout this, I’ll fix yer car fer free, and you guys drive me to Sanctuary? I’d like the company and extra protection.” Scooter said, holding his hand out again, “We got a deal?”

“Protection… hah!” Vaughn snickered and Rhys quickly shot him a glare before he took Scooter’s hand in his without hesitation, suddenly caring less about dirtiness and more about getting to Sanctuary and not being stuck in Death Point or whatever it was called.

“We got a deal!”

“Awesome! Can’t wait to go to Sanctuary with y’all. Now, I’ll take the keys and roll her in ‘ere and get to work as quickly as I can lift a wrench.”

“Should we wait here or what?” Vaughn asked as Rhys handed him the keys.

“Nah, I prefer workin’ alone, so I cans concentrate. There’s a bar nearby, why doesn’t y’all go relax there while I work on her?”

“Sounds great, I’m pretty thirsty... if there’s clean water or… anything clean there to drink, actually.” Rhys said and Vaughn nodded in agreement. Scooter showed them out of the garage and pointed towards the bar—it was actually straight down the road from his garage. They followed the dirt path, where old, rickety shacks surrounded the pathway and a few alleyways lead to who knows where. It was very dark, as expected since it was a cave. The few lights that lit the pathway up were either from homes where the boards over the windows had holes and spaces that let the light shine through or from the very few round lamps which hung above, most were flickering and dim. Some people were lying on the side of the dirt road: some had beer bottles surrounding them, others had blood surrounding them. The only saving grace was at the end of this damned path—the bar. It’s bright blue and pink iridescent lights shining as a beacon of hope.

“Rhys, this feels like a place where we’re going to get jumped,” Vaughn said, following behind his friend closely as they walked down the dark path together.

“Don’t worry—I’ve got… the stick that Yvette gave me.” Rhys said, as he pulled it out slightly from his belt to show Vaughn and wriggled his eyebrows, a smirk crossing his face as he feigned confidence.

“Do you know how to use it?”

“Absolutely not, but if the time arises, I’m sure I’ll learn how to work it.”

At that moment, a man busted through the house on the left, the door swinging open. Vaughn and Rhys let out a high-pitched screech as they watched the man fall to the ground as three mini psychos stabbed him countless times, blood spewing out of the knife-wounds.

“Oh my God—”

“What the hell—”

“Holy shit—”

“We’re so dead!”

“What is going on!?”

The men went between screeching, incoherent babbling, and expletives. The mini psychos looked at the two of them, confused by their reaction, and ran off, leaving the dying man behind. Their lack of presence, however, did not calm Rhys nor Vaughn, who still let screeches out. The dying man glared at them.

“Can you two shut up while I die please? Give me some peace.” He managed to sputter out, blood dripping from his lips.

“Uh—I---oh God… I’m gonna be sick, I’m going to be sick.” Rhys muttered, turning away from the dying man. Vaughn managed to cup his hands over his mouth, muffling the noises he was making as he continued to freak out as quietly as he could.

The drying man gasped out, “Thank… you…”

“He’s… God, he’s dead. I just saw my first death… wait, no, didn’t Jerry die in front of me?” Vaughn said, as he removed his hands slowly from his mouth, “Claire might’ve bit it, too, yeah, that airlock got her. Oh, and Quinn, allergic to melons…”

“Can you, just, stop, please.” Rhys managed to get out, turning back to his friend. He hadn’t thrown up, but he looked a lot paler than he usually was.

“Pandora deaths are a lot more gruesome than… uh, ‘moon’ deaths.” Vaughn said after he stared at the dead man lying in front of them.

“Come on, let’s move before they come back.” Rhys tugged on Vaughn’s arm as he began walking a lot quicker than what he was doing before.

“Hey, wait up, your legs are longer than mine!” Vaughn mumbled, almost hopping to keep up with Rhys. Finally, they made it to the bar’s front door.

“Huh… no bouncer.” Rhys mumbled.

“Look at all the wanted posters,” Vaughn said, pointing towards them. They hung on the outside of the wall, above and around the front door, many of them saying ‘dead or alive’ with a high cash reward.

“Yeah, let’s not run into any of those people, alright?” Rhys said as he walked through the salon-style doors with Vaughn following.

The inside of the bar was, well, it was nicer than any of the outside areas. The bar had a very Pandoran feel to it, but bars always have some similarities, and this was a comfort to our two Hyperion workers. The bar itself was U-shaped, and, upon entering, the back-right wall was filled with shelves of exotic drinks and kegs, dim blue lights and brighter pink lights lit the drinks up. The wooden posts that were around the bar that held the ceiling up were wrapped in white fairy lights, which went up to the top and hung around the top of the bar. The walls, which looked to be made up of different materials, had pictures and posters hung on them. There were a few barstools around the bar and a few tables around the bar. There was only a handful of people here—an older gentleman sat at the bar, a man completely decked out in black with a mask slept at a table, and on the far left sat two women and a blonde man. Rhys and Vaughn decided to sit at the bar, finally feeling as though they were able to breathe, and felt a sense of safeness. Things were going their way, slowly, but soon they’d be making it to Sanctuary.

“Sanctuary is really supposed to be safe for us, Rhys?” Vaughn asked.

“Yeah, I know it sounds weird, Vaughn, but Sanctuary is where we have to go if we want to go home; it’s right for us.”

“If you say so, I just want to get back fast…” Their conversation trailed off as a young woman walked over to them.

She gave them a small smile. A headband pulled her braids out of her face and showed off her white horn-like earrings, her charming green eyes, and her goggles around her neck. Her outfit was very Pandora, but it fit her, at least, Rhys thought it fit her well. It was a white tank-top with a small half-length red jacket, which seemed to be ripped in places and patched with different colored patches. Rhys noticed he was staring and glanced away as she said, “Anything I can get you two?”

“Water, please, for now,” Vaughn answered back, giving her a smile. Rhys just nodded as she left and quickly returned with two glasses of water. Vaughn gave her some cash, Rhys giving her a tip. She took the money, thanking them, and returned to the seat behind. The two guys inspected the glasses, making sure they were safe and clean to drink before they began doing so. They overheard the conversation going on behind them, and Rhys turned his head slightly to eavesdrop further…

“I can’t believe that Hyperion stood us up!” The blonde shouted. He was loud and angry sounding.

“Hon, please, we have guests here.” The one who just took Rhys’s and Vaughn’s orders spoke.

“Well, we can just ask for more.” The second woman said. She wore a white hat, a strand of her brown hair dyed pink. Her outfit included what looked to be a deep red and gold leather jacket that she wore over a red and gold corset.

“Lidia you don’t know who this guy just messed with.” The blonde grumbled at, apparently, Lidia. Rhys continued to watch as the blonde man reached into something and took out a gray, stone-like device with a purple gleam lining it. “Who bails on buying a vault key?”

“August, keep your voice low…” Lidia said.

“No one bails on one—he must be testing us. We’ll get him on the phone soon, and then demand more.” The waitress replied, putting her hand on her hip as she stared at the vault key with a smirk.

“How many calls do we wait until we answer him, then, babe?” The blonde asked.

“A few more… trust me, I’ve got a feeling about waiting…”

“A vault key?” Vaughn whispered to Rhys.

“Is that the one that Assquez wanted to buy? Was this his deal that I was thinking about stealing? Oh man, if we can get that vault key and ruin his day… heck, we’d be accepted back to Hyperion with open arms.” Rhys whispered to Vaughn, but he flinched slightly as he thought the older gentlemen nearby had heard them. Rhys glanced out of the corner of his eye but noticed that the older gentleman was just scratching his mustache. Huh… a mustache might look nice… no, Rhys, focus. “I want to scan it; I’ve never scanned a vault key before…” Rhys said, quietly. He was able to scan objects and people with his ECHO eye, and, admittedly, he usually couldn’t help the extreme want he got to scan something new. Whenever he ran into anything different, it was almost an automatic response.

“Do it, bro. It’s a once in a lifetime thing, right?”

“Well, August,” Lidia spoke, her voice sounding almost desperate, the tone in her voice had changed incredibly quickly for some reason. “I need to go. With the vault key. Like, leave, right now.”

“Scan it quick, Rhys. They’re leaving.” Vaughn whispered to him As Rhys’s ECHO eye implant began focusing on the vault key, the electronic components within his eye began shifting as the scanning began.

“What?” August asked, holding the vault key close to him.

“I just… need to take it.” She replied.

“What do you mean, ‘you need to take it’!?” His voice began to rise in volume once again, “What? One guy ditched us and now you want to take the key and run. We have a deal, and you’re going to be working with me, whether you like it or not.”

“Uh… I am working with you, through you, together, but… I need to take it now!”

“Hon, give her the key…”

“Sasha, stay out of this.” August said to the waitress and turned back to Lidia, “You know, there’s been something fishy about you… I don’t trust you…”

“August, listen to me!” Sasha snapped, angrily, as she slammed her foot down.

“Huh…” Rhys said, out loud.

“What is it?” Vaughn asked as he watched Rhys stand up and go over to the three people. “Rhys? What are you doing, buddy? Think this through… oh no.”

Rhys snatched the vault key from August, as the man was too focused on Lidia to notice him. “This is fake.” He said, confidently, with a proud look on his face, like he was equal to a God talking down to his followers.

“A what?” August said, bluntly, turning to face Rhys.

“Who are you!?” Sasha snarled, looking ready to attack Rhys, her pleasant waitress demeanor quickly changing.

“Yeah, don’t listen to this drunkard, August. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Give us back our vault key, alcoholic.” Lidia stood up, staring at him intensely. It was only then that Rhys noticed she had the same green eyes that Sasha had.

“Yeah, no. This is a fake, I scanned it with my ECHO eye implant, and it told me… see, here, look. Just watch.” Rhys took a step back and dropped the key, which shattered when it hit the ground, the glowing purple stopped shining as pieces of it fell off and paint was scratched off from the impact. “Real vault keys wouldn’t shatter like that with their paint chipping off. Don’t try to pull one over on Hyperion.”

“Rhys… I don’t think that was a good idea… at all.” Vaughn sighed as he stood up next to his friend, staring at the broken ‘key’. The look on Lidia’s face was pure shock and nervousness, while Sasha looked like she was about to murder someone. Rhys, however, had a proud smirk on his face for ratting out these two con artists.

“You liar!” August shouted, and suddenly he produced a gun from his belt loop. He pointed it quickly at Lidia but altered between her, Rhys, and Vaughn, who threw their hands up.

“Whoa! We didn’t do anything dude,” Vaughn shouted.

“Yeah just uh, please put the gun down, and let’s talk this out, huh?” Rhys said, giving his best smile to August. “We can uh, get you more money than Hyperion could ever pay you, just let us go and—”

“I’m done talking! You two jerks broke my dreams, and she lied to me… you all are going—”

Rhys fell to his knees, sobbing loudly, “Plllleeease, I’m too young to die! Shoot her, not me! I thought I was doing you a favor and showing off my great intellect! Don’t kill me on this wretched planet!”

“Wow, you're something else, aren’t you?” Lidia sneered as she glanced at Vaughn, who just gave her a quick shrug.

August watched Rhys’s sobbing fit with a shocked face before he turned to Vaughn, “Is… is he always like this?”

“Uh… sometimes.”

“C’mon guy, get up… you’re uh, making this weird for me…” Just then, Sasha jumped and grabbed his gun, pointing it straight up in the air, and a shot fired off. The second that she jumped at him, Rhys and Vaughn ran off, as Lidia yelled after them. Sasha managed to wrangle the gun away from a shaken August.

“Babe, what the hell are you doing!?”

“I’m not your ‘babe’! I conned you, and don’t you dare threaten my sister!” She snapped, punching August right in the stomach before running away with Lidia.

“Don’t… don’t you do this to me, Sasha…” August stammered, out of breath from her gut-punch. He managed to pull a different gun from his belt, trying to follow the girls but was staggering from the air being taken out of him.

Sasha and Lidia ran out of the bar. “Where’s Felix!?” Sasha asked.

“Don’t know…” Lidia mumbled, then she spotted Rhys and Vaughn. “Hey! There are the jerks who broke our key!” Lidia rushed after them, Sasha following behind. The two caught up quickly with Rhys, as he wasn’t fast at all. Vaughn was a bit further ahead.

“You moron, what were you thinking?! You just ruined everything, now we’re going to ruin you!” Lidia shouted at them.

“Listen… Lidia…” Rhys gasped out, breathing heavily from the exercise, “I was only… helping!”

“My name is Fiona! Not Lidia!”

Oh. Fiona it is.

“Who!? Who were you helping!?” Sasha snapped

“Hyperion…” Rhys gasped out, but they couldn’t hear what he had said because it was too breathy. Suddenly, shots fired behind them, and the three turned to look behind them and saw August with a large, muscular man with huge ears. There were other goon-looking people standing with August, their guns were drawn.

“What the hell is that? A mutant monster?” Rhys gasped out loud.

“The bouncer,” Fiona answered.

“August’s right-hand-man,” Sasha replied.

“Get them!” August yelled loudly, holding out a wanted poster, “That woman is a wanted criminal, and my ma will pay handsomely is you get all four of them!” And at the sound of the word ‘pay’, the cave became awake. People emerged from their homes, guns out, and all turned towards Rhys, Fiona, and Sasha.

“Rhys!” Vaughn was at the garage already; which Rhys was still a decent way away from. Rhys yelped when shots began firing all around him, and he ducked into an alleyway on the right side of the path. The two women ducked into a different alleyway on the left, hiding from the bullets. Sasha pulled out an SMG, firing it at the many thugs that were about to surround them. Fiona began fighting some masked hooligan, punching him square in the face. Rhys huddled down, unsure of what to do and scared for his life once again, but then a lightbulb went off. Rhys opened his ECHOnet via his robotic arm and called his friend.

“Yvette, we need help,” Rhys whispered, looking at Yvette through the holographic screen.

“Already? You guys have been down there for no less than an hour and you already need my help?”

“Please Yvette, you can berate me later, but I need a Loader Bot, stat!” Rhys said, and Yvette sighed.

“Fine. I’ll send one your way, just, know that my resources are limited. Hugo’s watching all of us closely, hell, I’ve been on this call too long already.” With that, Yvette closed the call. Rhys stood up and felt better at the thought of a Loader Bot, but that feeling quickly went away when he came face-to-face with a large nomadic-like man. Rhys watched as the opponent took out a hatchet and slung it at Rhys, who ducked just in time to not get his head chopped off, but this made Rhys off-balance, and the nomad kicked him to the floor. Rhys began trying to slide backward, the hatchet coming to land right between his legs.

“Whoa, whoa, too close, way too close.” Rhys stammered as he continued to crawl backward in the alleyway until his back hit a wall. Rhys reached to grab something, anything and found the baton that Yvette had given him. He pulled it out, threateningly, holding it in front of himself. The nomad paused, staring at it, as Rhys shook it up, down, and sideways, trying to get it to work or turn on or something. The nomad laughed as he walked towards Rhys slowly, and pulled the hatchet above his head. Rhys felt a ridge on the handle of the baton and hit it, and the baton lengthened outward and shocked the nomad, who went flying backward from the force.

Rhys stood up, looking at the stun baton with amazement, “Wow… that was amazing!” Rhys said and turned around to see Sasha watching him from across the way. “Wasn’t that amazing? Wasn’t I amazing?” He asked her. She rolled her eyes, holding up a thumb’s up. “Thank you!” Rhys said, bowing slightly. When he looked back up, Angel was in his viewpoint, blocking Sasha.

“Rhys, look out!” Angel shouted, looking scared. Rhys turned just in time to be met with a hatchet swinging at him; he tried to dodge out of the way, but the hatchet managed to cut his cheek. The blow knocked Rhys to the wall once again, where he hit his head, and Angel disappeared from his view. He cupped the wound, biting his lip to hold back a groan of pain. When he pulled his hand away, he saw blood smeared on his hand from the cut. He glanced at the nomad, who looked much worse-for-wear, with the mask that they were wearing being cracked and their coat looking burnt. Rhys scrambled back up on his feet and the nomad tried to punch Rhys, who dodged sideways and decided to punch him back, which was a bad idea.

“Ow! Ow ow ow!” Rhys muttered, shaking his human hand as the punch seemed to hurt him more than the nomad. Rhys sighed when he heard Sasha laughing from across the way, “Just… ignore that!” He shouted at her before he tried to shock him once again, but the coat took the brunt of the attack, and Rhys realized the nomad didn’t have any flesh to attack. Rhys had to think, quickly, how he could defeat this guy, and then it dawned on him and he slammed the stun baton into the mask’s eyehole and the nomad let out a blood-curdling scream as he fell over. At that moment, a loud ‘crash’ could be heard along with rocks crumbling as a Loader Bot broke its way into the cave from the roof. “Finally!” Rhys shouted, “Loader Bot, attack!” The Loader Bot, a normal Hyperion yellow in color, stood in the middle of the pathway, bullets hitting him.

“Hi.”

“No, not ‘hi’, attack!” Rhys commanded. Rhys moaned when the Loader Bot didn’t move, and brought out his robotic hand, “Looks like I need to hack him to be able to utilize his full potential.” Rhys muttered to himself, pulling up a screen on his robotic arm, easily hacking his way into Loader Bot’s mainframe. “Let’s see… ooh, homing rockets, yes, please. And uh, definitely a shield to help protect him and me.” Rhys looked up from the screen, smirking, “I’ll help you out, Loader Bot.” And Rhys took over Loader Bot’s aiming module, the holographic screen displaying what the Loader Bot could see. It was almost like a video game, with Rhys targeting opponents with Loader Bot’s abilities, shielding against a rocket launcher, and taking said rocket launcher out with homing rockets. “Nice Loader Bot, you keep that up! Protect me while I get to Vaughn!”

“… Ok.” Loader Bot answered, and as Rhys ran out of the alley with Sasha and Fiona following behind as Loader Bot used the shield to block attacks for them. One gunman tried to cut Rhys off, but Loader Bot flew towards Rhys, stopping the attack and picking the man up and chucking him halfway across Hollow Point.

“Thanks, Loader Bot!” Rhys shouted as he made it to the garage with Sasha and Fiona close behind.

“Scooter we need our car, now!”

“Uh…” Scooter said, scratching his head. Rhys then noticed that there wasn’t a black car in his garage any longer.

“Where’s our car?” Vaughn questioned.

“You two are SO going to get it…” Sasha said, cracking her knuckles, “How DARE you ruin our plan and almost get us killed! Everything that happening is your fault!”

“Yikes man, what did you do?” Scooter asked, then smiled, “Hey, Sasha, Fiona! I got ‘yer caravan fixed up. Felix came by here in a hurry, but he took these ‘fellas car before I could even say ‘hello’. Just up and stole the keys and it from my shop!”

“He did what?” Fiona asked, stunned.

“He left us?” Sasha asked, looking wide-eyed.

“He-uh, he had a wad of cash with him and nothin’ much else…”

“That bastard! He took our emergency money from the trailer that we stole together! The wad of money that we’ve been saving up…” Fiona exclaimed, Sasha, however, just stood in stunned silence, her eyes furrowed, and fists clenched.

“Not to intrude on your anger towards whoever backstabbed you, but what now?” Vaughn asked, nervously.

“Well, you two are staying here, as you’re going to be stuck here. Sasha and I are leaving… we’re not welcome here, not right now, at least, if you couldn’t tell.” Fiona said, glaring at Rhys and Vaughn as she tried to put her arm around her little sister, but Sasha shrugged it away.

“Now wait here, we’re in just the same amount of danger from that crazy guy you two paired up with.” Rhys folded his arms, looking angry.

“Don’t try to blame any of this on us! It was you and your stupid eye scanning thing!” Sasha finally woke up from her angry daze and snapped at Rhys.

“Well, you shouldn’t have trusted that guy, he seemed like he was ready to snap any second!” Rhys yelled back.

“Listen, ladies, you know I hate arguin’ and fightin’, and I know somethin’ bad must’ve happened, but these two men promised to take me to Sanctuary and keep me company… don’t seem so bad to me, at least, if they offered to do that fer me.” Scooter cut into the bickering, “Maybe they could join y’all on the caravan and still take me to Sanctuary. Might be a safe place fer y’all, too.” Before any of them could reply, Loader Bot’s robotic voice rang out.

“Help.”

“You shouldn’t have lied to me, Sasha! You know I hate it when people lie to me!” August yelled as he managed to rip one of Loader Bot’s arms off. Another goon shot his robotic legs out, while another jumped on his back and began punching him with the butt of their gun.

“Looks like he’s madder about your relationship than the key…” Rhys stated as he began trying to access Loader Bot’s weapons and armor once again.

“There wasn’t ever a relationship.” Sasha groaned, as she looked at Fiona and the two nodded. Fiona went to the caravan door, slinging it open as Sasha ran in. Fiona beckoned to Scooter, who hesitated but followed Sasha inside.

“Crap, I can’t repair him, everything is down…” Rhys muttered to Vaughn, the ECHO hack screen, which was usually blue, was red with a bunch of ones and zeros and the words WARNING flashing on it.

“Rhys just tell him to leave!” Vaughn pleaded with his friend, not wanting to watch the bot get destroyed.

Rhys bit his lip, trying to decide what to do—if he sent Loader Bot away, then there’d be no one to protect them, or at least, distract the bandits if these women leave them there; however, seeing the poor bot get his robotic limbs torn off was depressing. “Loader Bot… evacuate, leave, go!” Rhys commanded.

“Ok.” Loader Bot answered back, now nothing but a husk, no arms and no legs left. He still was able to fly and flew out of the cave, the bandit that was on top of him falling off. The bandits and August turned towards the boys. Rhys and Vaughn looked back at Fiona, who was still holding the door open.

“Get in.” She sighed, glaring at them.

“Thank you!” Vaughn said, his voice shaking with fear and relief, as he ran inside. Rhys followed, but he didn’t say ‘thank you’, nor did he even smile or look at Fiona as he went inside. Fiona was about to get in after them when a shot fired and hit the caravan, a little too close to her head. She turned back quickly, a hidden golden pistol extending from under her sleeve. She pointed it towards the one who shot at her—August—and fired. He ducked around the corner of the garage, the shot barely missing him, but it gave her enough time to slam the door shut.

“Drive!” Fiona shouted, and Scooter, who sat at the wheel, slammed on the pedal. The caravan screeched to a start, and raced out of the garage, August jumped out of the way of the speeding caravan as Scooter turned on the boosters. Rhys and Vaughn were thrown backwards into the caravan, falling onto the floor at the sudden acceleration, as Fiona and Sasha held onto the back of the driver and passenger seat, respectively. Scooter yelled out as they left the cave:

“CATCH-A-RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE!!!!!”


	6. Onward to Sanctuary!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kudos! I went and edited the past chapters and tried to fix as many spelling and formatting errors as possible while adding some more details in (and adding chapter titles to better fit with the games since they have chapter titles)! This was my first fic, so I definitely have learned a lot about writing and this website since starting it (and I'm still learning more).  
Anyways, I hope you enjoy this chapter!

“I will name my firstborn, Loader Bot,” Rhys said as he managed to pull himself back up off the caravan floor as they sped out of the cave, the boosters wearing off and their speed going back to normal. “Well, probably not…”

“I’m glad y’all let ‘em come with.” Scooter spoke to the two women while he drove the car, glancing over his shoulder to look at them with a large grin, “Didn’t wanna see these two nice men’s entrails.”

“Yeah me too, I never want to see my entrails, nor Rhys’s,” Vaughn replied sarcastically, still sitting on the floor of the caravan as he took his glasses off to make sure they weren’t broken or crooked; thankfully, they weren’t.

“Don’t be thanking us yet…” Sasha growled, staring at the two men.

“Yeah, we have some questions for you two…” Fiona responded, arms crossed, and eyes narrowed as she stared them both down. Scooter’s grin changed to a nervous frown as he went back to watching the road, deciding to stay out of it. Rhys, however, wasn’t paying attention to the women, and instead, he rubbed his temples as he shook her head slightly, eyes wide with shock.

“Gah I stabbed someone in the eye… I think… I think I killed him… that was disgusting… I’m never going to be able to sleep again!” Rhys mumbled, trying to get the image and the blood-curdling scream out of his head.

“It’s ok bro, you did what you had to—” Vaughn tried to say before getting interrupted.

“Where did you come from where you haven’t killed someone before!?” Sasha snapped.

Rhys looked at Sasha and Fiona, “I mean, I killed people, just, indirectly, not with my own hands or with my own baton…”

Vaughn and Scooter snickered at Rhys’s answer, the two women, however, did not change their expressions. Sasha began pacing around the caravan, SMG in hand, finger on the trigger, obviously not trusting either of them. Fiona stood, arms still crossed and eyes still narrowed, anger painted on her face, probably because they ruined her chance to get any money from their scan… and ruined her chance to go back to Hollow Point… and ruined her relationship with somebody called Felix… wow, they ruined a lot of stuff for these two women. 

“Rhys, you’re hurt,” Angel spoke, suddenly appearing in front of Rhys, who quickly tightened his jaw and only jumped a little from her sudden appearance.

“Goddamnit…” He sighed out loud after noticing that he still jumped from her showing up randomly and now everyone was looking at him either suspiciously or weirdly and Sasha had her SMG pointed straight at him. “Uh, sorry, my cut is starting to really hurt…” Rhys said, thinking fast for an excuse that wouldn’t get him shot or kicked out of the caravan.

“What?” Sasha pulled her SMG downwards, pointing it towards the floor, “It’s so small, I wouldn’t even call that a cut!” she sneered, “I don’t think we own any bandages THAT small…” 

Rhys rolled his eyes at her, “Hah-hah you’re so funny… I uh, I just need some air to… heal… yeah… so, can I go up on top of the caravan?” He smiled.

“What on Pandora are you talking about?” Sasha growled.

“Uh… Rhys, can’t you stay here…?” Vaughn asked as he stood up next to his best friend and leaned over to whisper “I don’t want to be left alone with them; they look ready to kill…”

“He probably needs some time to go cry…” Fiona snickered, and Sasha giggled at her comment.

“That’s not… hah, you both have a similar sense of humor I see—cruel and unfunny.” Rhys said sarcastically.

“Fine, go. What can he do up there? Jump off? Saves us a bullet.” Sasha said, shrugging her shoulders as she began pacing around the caravan again, slowly, eyeing Vaughn and Rhys. 

“Well, uh, just to let’cha know, we gunna be in Sanctuary sooner than ‘ya think. That turbo boost really helped with the travelin’.” Scooter piped up.

“That’s alright… I’ll uh, I’ll be back when I’m done up there.” Rhys said, hand already gripping the ladder that led up onto the top of the caravan.

“Uh… can I go with—” Vaughn started, before getting cut off.

“Nope! You can stay here and answer our questions!” Fiona said, turning towards Vaughn, smirking at him.

“Sorry buddy, but you got this, right? I’ll be back soon…” Rhys said as he climbed the ladder and opened the hatch, heading outside.

“Suuure… I got this… yes, me, totally…” Vaughn answered, and when Rhys disappeared, he turned back to the women, “Please don’t shoot me, I’ll tell you whatever you want!”

Sasha and Fiona glanced at each other, Sasha lowering her shoulders and Fiona uncrossing her arms, “We’re not going to shoot you unless you give us a reason to.” Sasha answered, “Stop worrying…”

“You’re pretty wimpy for someone with abs like that…” Fiona pointed out as she headed over to one of the seats in the back of the caravan.

Vaughn looked down at his body, “Oh… right, no shirt. Um, they’re from an exercise bike…”

“Oh…” Both women answered, disappointedly.

“Thought you were a vault hunter or something since you’re so ripped…” Sasha sighed, heading over to Fiona and sitting beside her.

“Me?” Vaughn began laughing, “Yeah right, vault hunter, no way would I be a part of them!”

“I look up to the vault hunters…” Fiona said, glaring at Vaughn.

“I mean, uh, well, yeah, you—you could certainly be a-a vault hunter.” Vaughn’s laughter turned into nervous chuckles as he cleared his throat.

“Come, sit, we have some questions for you.” Sasha smiled, inviting Vaughn next to her.

“Uh… alright…” He muttered, walking over and sitting down next to Sasha, “What… what are we going to talk about?”

Both Sasha and Fiona stole glances at each other before Fiona answered, “We just have a few questions, is all.”

Vaughn looked a little nervous before nodding, waiting for their questions, hoping he could answer them with lies equal to Rhys’s own lies…

~

Rhys climbed to the top of the caravan, closing the hatchet behind him. The sun was setting and painted the desert-like tundra of Pandora in a bloody-golden haze—how appropriate, he thought. He sat down and glanced at Angel’s own eyes. She hadn’t left his viewpoint since she appeared in front of him. “Hey…” He said.

“Hi…” She answered back.

“You um, you’re getting better at this, huh? Less… static-y, more…” He held his hands up, making a circle motion with them.

She watched his hands and then looked back at his face, “Round?”

“Wha—no, I mean, more… there! Uh, you know?”

“Oh, yes, uh, well, I haven’t had much practice doing this, not for a while, so…” She trailed off.

“You’ve done this before?” Rhys questioned her, “I… thought I was the only one.”

Angel laughed, “Oh, no, just, a group before you… but um, I doubt they want to hear from me anymore.” 

“Why’s that?” 

“Uh… well, they're busy with their own goals, their own lives.” Silence fell between them before Angel continued, “So, those girls, down there…”

Rhys ran a hand through his hair, looking out at the sunset, “They’re crazy… but, we’re getting to Sanctuary, that’s all that matters. Well, that and staying alive… which, I’ve gotta make sure they don’t shoot us or anything.”

“Yeah, well, those girls, you can’t tell them about me or Jack. At all. They will kill you, us, I guess. They do not like Handsome Jack, so, they’ll kill you if you say anything about Handsome Jack, understood?”

“That’s all of Pandora, nobody understands the good he’s doing!” Rhys snapped, glancing at her before looking back at the sunset, “I bet I could convince them… hm, you stay on Helios for so long, you forget what a real sunset looks like—heck, what the sun looks like…”

“Don’t try to convince anyone with an SMG anything, it won’t work out well for you. And, um, I think staring at the sun is a bad idea…” Angel said, “But, it does look beautiful…” She mumbled, “I don’t get to see it that often, either… it’s nice I can see it with you.”

Rhys looked at her, but, even though she was always in his viewpoint, looking at him, for once, it seemed like she wasn't looking at him, more like she was looking at the sunset. Strangely, he felt the same towards her, attached, glad that, for some reason, she was sharing this strange time with him and him alone. He felt connected to her, but he didn’t know why, but clearly, she felt it too. “It is nice.” He said, softly. They stayed like that, watching the sun head down in silence, and Rhys was able to forget he was on Pandora. He forgot that he was on top of a caravan filled with three strangers and his best friend, that the land that the sun was bathing in its light was deadly and dangerous, that Angel was a hologram, and wasn’t real, wasn’t there with him. Finally, the sun fully set, the stars taking over the sky, declaring it their realm, at least, for a few hours. 

“Rhys.”

Her voice brought his attention back to her. Her expression was calm, a small smile on her face, “You’re going to do great things.” She said.

“I… great, me? I mean, I try, but… I’m not really doing anything great, I’m afraid…” He replied, but she just shook her head.

“Be careful, even in Sanctuary. Be wary of who you talk to, who you talk about, who you befriend. There are people who will always hate Hyperion, and, by extension, you. I can only protect you so much, but I will be more in your life from here on out… as your story begins…” She motioned with her head to the front of the caravan, “We’re here.”

Rhys turned to look at what she was speaking of and, in front of them, was a large structure. Concrete walls surrounded and hid the contents inside, but the bright lights shone around the whole structure and the banner on the front with the town’s name made it undeniable that this was Sanctuary.

“Angel—” Rhys spoke, but when he glanced up to where she usually was in his view, she was gone. He stayed there, by himself, for a moment, taking Sanctuary in—Sanctuary, a haven, their new home, at least, for now. Finally, once the air began to chill him, Rhys went back down into the caravan.

“Hey, man, ain’t she purty?” Scooter spoke, still in the driver’s seat, glancing over his shoulder to look at Rhys before turning back to the road ahead of them.

“Yeah…” Rhys replied softly as he closed the hatch and climbed down. He looked at where Fiona, Sasha, and Vaughn were all sitting together. Sasha and Vaughn were leaned against each other, asleep, and Fiona held the SMG in her hands, sitting straight up, staring at Rhys. He stood still for a moment before asking, “So uh, what’d you do to Vaughn?”

“Nothing… he’s… a good guy, I guess or seems it, at least. He quite enjoys talking about himself, told us a lot of his childhood and history on Elpis, about how he helped people with their finances, and you were apparently were great at talking with people and making friends—a real socialite.” 

“Yep, that was life… back on the moon.” Rhys smiled. Good job, buddy.

“Well, we still want to ask you some questions…” Fiona answered although it was difficult to sound intimidating when she had to keep her voice down so she wouldn’t wake the two sleeping.

“More?” Rhys questioned, letting out a disgruntled sound as he crossed his arms, “What, you want to sit down and talk over some tea in a fancy accent with our pinkies out like we’re all friends here or—”

“I was thinking more of you answering all my questions or I’ll run you over in this caravan…” Fiona sneered back, lifting the SMG in her hand, which caused Rhys to slowly put his hands up.

“Hey, now—” Rhys started, but got cut off.

“We here ya'll!” Scooter called, parking the car in front of the gate and heading outside. Sasha’s eyes opened from his voice, and she slowly sat up straight, Vaughn slouching down further, this time against Fiona’s shoulder as he continued to snooze away. She rubbed her green eyes and groggily looked out the window before jumping up. 

“Fiona, we’re at Sanctuary!” She cheered, grabbing her SMG from Fiona’s hands and running outside, the other woman unable to get her protest out before Sasha left.

Rhys chuckled, “Someone’s excited, huh? Guess there’s no running me over today…” Rhys said as he walked towards the caravan’s door.

“Our conversation is not over… we’ll continue it later…” Fiona hissed but stayed still as Vaughn slept, trying to find a way to move him away from her so she could get up and follow.

Scooter was already at the gate, hands on hips, leaned over and speaking into a to a small depiction of a holographic man, “Hey! It’s Scooter—get Roland, he knows me, I brought some friends that wanna come join!” 

The hologram stated back, “We can’t open the gates until the new core gets installed, what the hell is taking that guy so long? We gave it to him, but the forcefield is still weak…”

Scooter pointed behind him with his thumb, “Over there, right? I cans go do it…” He stood back up straight, his back popping, “Just uh, gimme a minute… phew, drivin’ fer so long can do a number on ‘ya…”

“I can do it—it’s the least I can do to repay you for your kindness.” Rhys offered, “Let me go check on the core and help install it, I’m good with technology so it shouldn’t take too long.”

“Alright, thanks, man!” Scooter agreed, but Sasha quickly butted in.

“Uh-uh, not by yourself at least, I’m going with you…” She said, turning to him.

“That really isn’t needed—” 

“I said,” She pointed the SMG up at Rhys, “I’m going with you. I don’t trust you. Vaughn… couldn’t hurt a fly. You? You’re…” She glanced him up and down, “… weird.”

“Fine, alright,” Rhys threw his hands up, “Come on, I don’t care if you come or not.” The two walked away from the gate together towards a small station-like area that was further away from the walls of Sanctuary. When the two walked up the stairs onto the platform, they spotted a lone soldier, a table, and a peculiar beacon-like satellite. On the table sat a curiously shaped object. “Uh… hello?” Rhys asked, looking at the soldier.

“You here to install the core?” He replied.

“Yep, that’s what he’s here to do…” Sasha nudged her SMG towards Rhys’s direction. 

“Well, that’s the new core sitting there, the old ones still plugged in—I don’t touch those electronics, don’t know how to do them, I just guard them.” The guard replied.

“Go on now…” Sasha shoved the tip of the SMG into Rhys’s back.

“Alri—ow, ok, stop! I have to concentrate while I hack it—”

“Hack it? No, no, no.” The guard spoke, holding the shotgun in his hand up at him, who stared back wide-eyed. “No hacking. All you got to do is pull that old one out, and plug the new one in, nothing more, nothing less, and no hacking.” 

“Ok! I can do that, just… let’s all put the guns down or give me one… this is really unfair.” Rhys laughed, although he felt his nerves rising as he went to the beacon-like satellite. Inside was a similar object as the one on the table, and Rhys wrapped his hands around it and began pulling… and pulling… and pulling.

“Uh…” The guard said, watching Rhys groan and struggle to uninstall the old core.

Sasha lowered her weapon all the way down, looking between the guard and Rhys, “Uh, I don’t know him…”

“Gah! Hah… hah…” Rhys let go of the beacon, popping his knuckles and shaking his hands, “Just—a little sweaty, you know, from the guns all around me!” 

“You… need me to do it for you?” Sasha asked, a smirk on her face.

“No! I got it, just, have some patience, would you?” He asked, wrapping his hands around it once again, this time he placed his feet against the bottom of the beacon and pulled with all his might; however, the core didn’t budge, instead, Rhys’s hands slipped and he fell backward with an “Oof!” The guard behind him began to laugh.

“Oh man, this—this has to be the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time!” The guard laughed, and even Sasha began to giggle as she went over to where Rhys laid on the floor.

“Great, yeah, laugh at me… don’t see if I hurt myself or… anything…” Rhys mumbled, sitting up, grimacing at the stiffness in his back. He glanced up at Sasha, who held her hand out to him.

“Come on, you’re fine, it was just a little fall.” She said, “Seriously, I can pull it out—”

“No, I… got it…” He answered, glancing at her before he stood up without accepting her help. 

“Well, if you insi—” She let out a gasp, hand coming to her mouth. 

“What’s wrong?” Rhys turned around quickly to see her bending down and picking up something, something he dropped, his stun baton, as she practically threw her SMG onto the table nearby.

“Oh, man!” She shouted, turning quickly to Rhys, holding the stun baton as it might disappear from her hands, “This is a JR4000, I-I didn't realize what it was when you used it in Hollow Point but, wow, I never thought I'd ever get to see one, let alone hold one!” Her eyes were gleaming as she looked the baton over. Rhys just looked at her curiously, one eyebrow raised.

“Uh… sure, yeah, that's what it is... and it's also mine, so, give it back.” He said, reaching out to take it from her, but she only pulled it closer to herself.

“But… but you don’t understand how rare these are!” 

“Uh, I do now, and knowing that it's rare makes me want it back even more, so, give it back.”

“I… no, I’ve never dreamt I’d hold one or… oh, I’m such a weapon nut, can… I… can I please open it? Use it? Just a little?” She asked, looking at Rhys with large, bright green eyes, her mouth slightly agape and spread in a hopeful smile. She looked happy for the first time since leaving Hollow Point, and Rhys smiled at her expression.

“Is… this thing really making you this happy?” He asked.

“Yeah!” She said almost astonished sounding by the fact that Rhys couldn’t understand her enthusiasm.

“Well, if I let you borrow it, how do I know you’ll give it back…” Rhys smirked, putting his hands on his hips—it was his turn to be in control. “I just don’t know if I can trust you, I know so little about you, maybe we should sit down, and you answer a hundred questions of mine…” He began looking at his nails, pretending to be uninterested in her pleas.

Sasha knew what he was doing, and clearly didn’t like it a bit, her eyes narrowed, her expression changing into a frown, “Stop that! I just, wanna, I mean, I’ll give it back, I promise!” 

“You… promise?” Rhys asked, glancing at her. He held his pinky finger out to her, “How about… a pinky promise?”

“A… pinky promise?” She said, dropping her shoulders down, holding the stun baton to her side. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. Pinky promises are the biggest kinds of promises, the ones you must keep, no matter what! They’re, well, serious stuff… I’d let you play with my JR… whatever, if you pinky promise me you’ll give it back.”

Sasha stared at him for a few seconds, trying to figure out if he was messing with her or not, and finally, she brought her pinky finger and wrapped it around his, a smile spreading across her face, “I promise.”

“Alright, she’s all yours, for, well, a little bit!” Rhys said, going back to trying to pull the old core out; however, he couldn’t help but glance over at her. She had turned the stun baton on and was swinging it around, stopping to marvel at it before swinging it around again, shouting words like ‘Die!’ and pretending to stab an invisible enemy. Rhys chuckled at her happiness, at the fun she was having, it was adorable. She glanced over at him watching her, and… did her cheeks change colors? Rhys could’ve sworn they were redder when she noticed him watching her, but he quickly couldn’t tell when she ran over and, with one hand, pulled the core out. 

“I got you—you know, for letting me play with your stun baton.” She turned it off, handing it back to Rhys as she placed the old core on the table.

“Th… thanks… uh, I totally loosened that for you…” Rhys muttered as he hooked the stun baton back onto his belt.

“Sure, you totally did,” Sasha giggled as she handed Rhys the new core. 

“Thanks, Sasha…” He said, turning to place the core into its place, sliding it in with ease. A light blue, wall-like forcefield appeared around Sanctuary, and Rhys watched as the front gate of Sanctuary began to open.

“You’re welcome, Rhys.” Sasha said, picking her SMG up, “Now, come on, let’s wake Vaughn up and get Fiona, we are going into Sanctuary!” She said as she and Rhys began walking back to the caravan and the now opened entrance to Sanctuary. Rhys didn't know what to expect from the Pandoran city, and no one knew how coming to Sanctuary would change their lives for the unforeseeable future.


	7. The Start of Something

“Welcome to Sanctuary!” Scooter shouted as the gates opened. Rhys, Vaughn, Fiona, and Sasha peered into the city. “Ain’t she a beaut?” Scooter asked, as the four just stared, dumbfounded looks upon their faces.

“That’s one way to describe it…” Vaughn muttered as he took his glasses off to clean them and put them back on, making sure his glasses weren’t THAT dirty, and they weren’t. It was just Sanctuary.

“Better than Hollow Point.” Fiona shrugged as she spoke, glancing towards Sasha.

“Yeah, but…” Sasha sighed, her smile changing to a frown, “I was expecting something more… impressive.”

“Same. It’s pretty crappy.” Rhys said, and they all turned to him with a glare, “What?” He asked at their expressive responses, “It is!” He said, walking into the city with his arms crossed. The gate opened into a circular pathway that branched off to two streets with dilapidated homes lining the concrete walkways. The four stood in the center of the circular opening, looking around at their surroundings and working through their disappointment as Scooter ran ahead past them to a garage door on the left side of the entrance.

“This here’s my shop!” He said, flinging the door open and pointing inside excitingly, “It’s been a while!” He turned, smiling wide, as the four others walked next to him to look inside, “Man I missed this place, garage sweet garage…” He quickly wiped away a tear that was forming in his eye. “Why don’t ya’ll take a gander around? The city ain’t small, and there are some people ya’ can meet! Ma is at the bar, the doc should be workin’ at the clinic, Marcus sells ammo and guns, and when ‘yer done meetin’ and greetin’ why don’tcha go see Roland, he’s in front of the main plaza, in the Crimson Raider’s buildin’.”

“Um, we would, but we have no idea where anything or anyone is around here.” Sasha pointed out while looking around his garage, interested in some of the metals and car parts that were hanging around on workbenches. Rhys and Vaughn stayed near the entrance of the garage, looking uncomfortable, shifting their weight from one side to the other while glancing around, not wanting to touch anything. Fiona stood a little bit behind them and was watching them carefully. 

Scooter paused for a second before snapping his fingers, “I got just the thing!” He ran into the back of the garage and began rummaging through boxes of metallic parts, magazines, and oil.

Vaughn glanced behind him at Fiona, “You haven’t let your eyes off of us since we got here…”

“I don’t trust you.” She answered simply.

“What?” Vaughn asked, looking personally hurt by her mistrust, “Why?”

“Yeah, like, what can we do?” Rhys turned towards her and held his arms out, “We’re unarmed and we're not strong…” He glanced down at Vaughn’s abs before looking back up at her, “Well, ok, one of us isn’t strong… but he makes up for it for his dashing good looks and intelligence.” He grinned, running a hand through his brown hair.

“Listen,” Fiona sighed, shaking her head, “I only know a little about you guys. You just waltzed into our operation and ruined it, us, and our whole lives and for what purpose? No one has told me anything.”

“I told you so much when you interrogated me!” Vaughn gasped, placing a hand on his chest, looking like she had just cursed him out.

“About your past! And, well, I know a bit more about you, Vaughn, and trust you more than this egotistical maniac.” Fiona jerked her head towards Rhys.

“Wow. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will always hurt me. C’mon,” Rhys argued back, “are you really going to hold a grudge like that? Can’t you forgive us?”

“I can hold as many grudges as I want. And you haven’t done anything yet that has made me want to forgive you.”

“She… has a point,” Vaughn said, causing Rhys to groan.

“Fine, fine, don’t trust us then. Why not just shoot us?” He asked, tapping his foot as he waited for her response.

Fiona thought for a few seconds before replying, “I don’t know what angle you guys are on about yet, maybe you're just innocent idiots who have bad timing and, so far, you’ve been somewhat helpful, but if you run, leave, desert us, hurt and cross us as Felix did…” She pulled her golden pistol out from her arm, causing the two men to startle, “I’ll know you’re not on Sasha’s and my side.” 

At the mention of her name, Rhys glanced over at Sasha, watching her curious amazement as she looked through all of Scooter’s mechanical tools and parts. “Sasha’s pretty special…” Rhys muttered, causing Fiona to narrow her eyes at him as he coughed, “Uh, to you, I mean.”

“Of course, she’s my sister. We’ve been through hell and hell together.” 

“The saying is hell and back.” Vaughn corrected her.

“Oh, I know. We haven’t gotten out of hell yet.” She answered him, fixing her hat as she spoke.

“Found ‘em!” Scooter yelled, running over to Sasha first and handing her some sort of rectangular device before doing the same to the boys and, finally, giving Fiona one, a blush spreading across his face. “Uh… here Miss Fiona.” He said, smiling. “It is ‘Miss’, yeah?”

“Yeah, and thanks… but uh, what is it?” She asked, turning it over in her hands, looking at the different buttons and switches. 

“That, my friends, is an ECHO Device! Here, ‘ya flip this red switch—” He reached over Fiona to switch hers on for her, Vaughn and Sasha following suit. “See, the screen flashes on, and, uh that’s just a user agreement, just accept it and don’t read it like we all do. And ta-da, you can see everything 'ya need to! It’s a handy device that keeps infermation on ‘yer weapons, a map, quests, ‘ya name it! If ‘ya get lost, whip out that ECHO device and boom, you’ll find ‘yer way!” 

Rhys held his ECHO device out towards Scooter, “I don’t need one.” 

“What do you mean?” Fiona asked, eyebrows furrowed as she glared at Rhys curiously.

He handed Scooter the ECHO back before tapping his left temple, “I got an ECHO eye installed, and my arm can pull up a map for me as well as do many awesome things that a simple ECHO device from Pandora can't do.”

“Sick. How’d you manage that?” Sasha asked, coming over to Rhys. 

“Huh? Oh, in surgery.”

“Surgery? You went under the knife for it?” Sasha asked, "Nothing like that on Pandora that I know of..."

“No, they gave it to me as a gift when I went in for… a different operation on Elpis.”

“So, what, you were missing an arm and eye when you went into surgery?”

“Oh no, no,” He chuckled, “I uh, see, they cut my arm off to replace it with a robotic one and changed my eye permanently. As a gift, you know.”

Sasha physically recoiled away from Rhys when he answered her question and Fiona gasped, covering her mouth. “What the hell?” Sasha asked.

“What?” Rhys asked, puzzled by their reactions.

“That’s not a gift! That’s… mutilation!” Fiona said in a shocked tone, looking incredibly disturbed at the new information about Rhys and she crossed her arms over her body and began rubbing her arms.

“Yeah, Rhys…” Sasha muttered, glancing at him again, wide-eyed, “That’s not a good thing…”

“Yes, it is, or was!” Rhys replied, his voice getting louder.

“No, it’s not!” Sasha shouted back as Rhys glanced around the room to see the other’s reactions. Fiona stayed quiet, her face pale from the conversation. Scooter nodded his head in agreement with Sasha, but also stayed out of the conversation. Vaughn was looking at the floor, twiddling his fingers as he listened, his bottom lip a bit red from him biting it. “That’s cruel and inhumane!” Sasha shouted, which brought his attention back to her. She looked angry, her fists balled up and eyes narrowed, but he couldn't grasp why she was angry, why they were reacting the way they were reacting. It was a gift from Handsome Jack himself, had they never had someone who cared for them? Looked out for them? Someone who was their idol. It was all so confusing to Rhys.

“It was a gift from the guy I admire the most in life! A guy who cares about me! Who was there for me when I… I uh… needed it.” Rhys muttered, stumbling over his words as he rubbed the back of his head. He wasn’t sure how Pandora would take transitioning, or if they’d understand it, and he didn’t want to bring it up now when he barely knew Sasha, Fiona, and Scooter.

“You’re saying this was done out of care? Out of love? Yeah, right.” Sasha sneered, placing the ECHO device away in her pocket before putting her hands on her hips, “That guy is not a good guy, Rhys.”

“You don’t know that. You don’t know who he is, what’s he done, for me and for everyone!”

“Who is he?” She questioned, tilting her head. 

“Okaaaay!” Vaughn interpreted quickly before Rhys could respond. He put one arm around Sasha’s shoulder and the other around Rhys’s—which looked a little awkward since Sasha was about his height and Rhys was quite taller than him. “Heeeey! Let’s go meet some of these Sanctuary people, huh? Who should we see first?” Vaughn asked, loudly, as he began leading his friends out of Scooter’s Garage, Fiona following behind, still silent, still looking shocked.

“Hm,” Sasha answered in reply as they walked back to where the entrance of Sanctuary was. “Maybe the doctor? Or gunsmith? Always good to get on good terms with them first.”

“I don’t know, this Moxxi woman sounds pretty… interesting. Plus, bar equals drinks.” Rhys pointed out. 

“Or maybe we could just go straight and meet this Crimson Raider dude?” Fiona finally spoke again, her voice quieter than normal.

“Or—”

“Oh! Hello there! I am always excited to meet new people in Sanctuary!” All four glanced down as a small cube-shaped robot on one wheel came up to him. He was yellow with a horizontal white stripe and a singular blue eye.

Vaughn took his hands off Sasha and Rhys’s shoulders, holding them in front of himself defensively as both Rhys and he shared a shocked glance at each other, the robot's colors sharing the same colors that Hyperion used.

The robot did a slight bow, “I am a CL4P-TP Unit, but my many, plentiful, friends call me Claptrap!” He stopped bowing, “It’s nice to meet you! I enjoy wubs, and dubs, and friends, and hugs!”

Rhys and Vaughn went between staring at him and each other, saying nothing to his introduction. Fiona had one eyebrow rose, her mouth slightly agape as she stared at him, unsure of what to think. Sasha, on the other hand, clapped her hands together in front of her, eyes literally sparkling, “Aww!” She chimed, kneeling in front of him, “He’s so cute and small!”

Claptrap wiggled his one eye at her, “Well lady, I can show you something equally cute and not small at all!” 

She stared, unblinking, at the robot, her smile still on her face as she stood up and kicked him hard, knocking him over and causing him to tumble across the dusty ground and concrete road before ending up on his side a few feet away from the group. She then began walking away, deeper into Sanctuary. “Come on guys!” She said in a cheery voice, “Let’s go meet the other members of Sanctuary!”

Fiona smirked, “Thatta girl.” She said, following her sister.

“Wow… she’s definitely something special…” Rhys muttered in a quiet tone, following Fiona and Sasha.

“Uh…” Vaughn muttered, walking over to the robot and glancing down at him.

“Help.” He said as he tried to push himself back up onto his wheel.

Vaughn reached one of his hands out before pulling it back, looking between the robot and the group that was leaving him, “Um, sorry!” He said before running off after Rhys. "Wait for me, guys!"

“That’s fine, it’s fine! Just don’t forget to come to my birthday party later, alright new friends! Friends!? … Friends? Eh, their ECHOs already marked it down as a quest so unless they forever want that unfinished quest in their quest log, they’ll come… they’ll come… they always do...”


	8. Marcus Munitions

“Alright, so where to first?” Rhys asked the three others, all looking down at their newly acquired ECHOs. They had stopped in the plaza of Sanctuary, which was a large circular plaza with a statue in the middle and a quick-change station nearby. To the right of them was the Crimson Raider’s base, evident from the banner that hung outside which read 'Crimson Raiders'. The ECHO said that to their left was Dr. Zed and to their right was Marcus’s Munitions and Moxxi’s Bar, all four places were places they needed to go visit. 

“We could split up,” Vaughn pointed out, and the girls looked at each other with a knowing look before glancing back at Vaughn.

“Only if by splitting up you mean that one of us goes with one of you and the other two go together, then yes, we can split up,” Fiona said, and Sasha nodded, her hand on her hip.

“Fine!” Rhys through his hands up in the air, “Fine, we’ll do it your way, as always!” 

“I don’t see much of a problem with it,” Vaughn muttered but kept his head down as Rhys began walking away to the right.

“Do something that makes us trust you, then,” Fiona sneered back as she turned the opposite way, walking to the left.

Sasha and Vaughn glanced at both and then each other, “Guess we follow, huh?” She said.

“Yeah, guess so,” Vaughn answered her, and the two shrugged at each other before leaving: Vaughn with Fiona and Sasha with Rhys.

Rhys and Sasha arrived at Marcus’s Munitions first. It was a basement of sorts, with a staircase leading down into the store, where one was faced with a counter that had a large 'Cashier' sign above it and metal bars protecting the vendor from the buyer. There was a man in front of Sasha and Rhys, so the two waited behind him. 

“The g-gun doesn’t seem to work…” The man that was first in line said to a heavier-set older man behind the counter. He was holding a pistol and turning it around in his hands.

“Hm, I don’t know…” The heavier-set man said before pointing the gun and firing it at the leg of the man in front of Sasha and Rhys. He fell to the ground, screaming, cradling his injured leg, as Rhys let out a high-pitched scream, jumping and hiding behind Sasha, who just stared, wide-eyed, at what had transpired in front of her.

“Looks like it works to me…” He said, before turning to Rhys and Sasha, “I’m Marcus. No refunds!” 

“Okaaaay, yep, hi uh, Marcus, but uh, we were just leaving…” Rhys tried to pull Sasha away, but she had planted her feet into the ground and wasn’t budging. 

“Nice shooting.” She complimented Marcus, the man still on the ground screaming his lungs out.

Marcus chuckled, “A smart woman, I see. Come, come, view to your heart’s content, I’ll uh, take the trash out.” He then moved from behind his counter, going to a door that opened into the shop. He picked the screaming, bleeding man up, throwing him over his shoulder, “Come now, quiet down, you’re the one who tried to rip me off, remember!” He said while heading upstairs to dump the man out in Sanctuary.

Rhys, still shaking behind Sasha, jumped to his feet, “Time to go, time to run, come on, Sasha!” He said so quickly his words merged into themselves.

“Nah.” She answered back, going to the counter, leaving a bewildered Rhys to stare after her.

“Nah!? That guy just shot someone, a-a customer! Customer’s always right, you know? And he shot him!” Rhys went on, running over to her side and pulling on her arm. 

“The customer isn’t always right,” Sasha replied back, hands on her hips as she looked over the ammo and guns for display, “Sometimes the customer needs to be shot in the leg.”

“No, that, gah, is that how Pandorans think?” Rhys muttered, fearfully, as he wrapped his arms around himself.

“Uh, I can tell you right now that’s how everyone thinks, not just Pandorans. What, the moon doesn’t think that way?” She questioned, turning to look at him.

“Of course not, we have manners and etiquette when it comes to killing people!” Rhys said quickly without thinking, biting his lip as soon as he heard what he said.

“Really?” She questioned, staring at him intensely, “You’re telling me Elpis is completely different than Pandora? That your people have a different way of killing others? More manners? Less shooting and more… what?” 

“That’s a lot of questions…” Rhys muttered, rubbing the back of his head. “Um…” 

“Now then, what can I get you, two lovely customers!” Marcus said, coming back down, Sasha’s attention turning to him as Rhys, mentally, breathed a sigh of relief.

“Saved by the crazy vendor.” He muttered under his breath as Sasha began talking with Marcus.

“I was looking to buy some SMG ammo.”

“Sure, that’ll cost you though.” 

“Rhys can cover it.”

“Uh, what?” Rhys asked, his turn to look at her with a glare, “I’m not made of money, here.”

Sasha glanced at him, “I need it.” She said simply.

“Pay for it yourself…” Rhys muttered.

Her shoulders raised as soon as he said that, “I can’t…” She muttered, looking down at the ground, “That… greedy bastard stole all the money Fiona and I worked hard getting…” 

“Who? Uh, that guy who stole our car?” Rhys questioned, looking at the array of guns on the counter, “Yeah he was a piece of work, stole our getaway car, almost got us killed, great guy.” He said, sarcastically. “What, was he like, your sponsor?”

Sasha sighed, fists bawled up, “No he… Felix, he’s a nobody now, to me!” She shouted, her voice rising, “But he, he raised me, and Fiona, to be who we are now…” Rhy’s eyes widened before softening, glancing down at his robotics. “He was… a father-figure, I thought, it was just the three of us, our make-shift family… but he was just a thug, a thief, a… fuck!” She shouted again, punching the metallic bars, leaving a small dent in them, tears slipping from her green eyes. Rhys reached a hand out to place on her shoulder, to comfort her, but she slipped away from him, running up the stairs and back outside.

Rhys stood there, watching where she left, a grimace on his face. He couldn’t imagine his own father figure, Handsome Jack, turning around and betraying him like that, but he felt bad for her, even though he couldn't put himself in her shoes.

“Yeesh that girl is strong in muscle but not in controlling her emotions.” Marcus said, bringing Rhys back from his thoughts, “She needs to learn that that’s Pandora, that that’s Pandorans, they’ll stab you in the heart and the back and take your stuff—”

“Just, shut up. She doesn't need to learn to control her emotions or that Pandora sucks she-she's fine as she is, just leave her alone and give me the SMG ammo,” Rhys muttered, standing up for Sasha as he took out some of the money that he and Vaughn had managed to leave with. 

“Sure thing, just pay for damages done to my shop too, while you’re at it…” Marcus said, glaring at Rhys, trying to decide where to shoot him or not, but if he was going to be a paying customer, then that answered Marcus's question quickly.

Rhys sighed, taking more cash out and paying a decent sum for the ammo and damage. He took the cartridge in his hand, heading up and out of the shop to where Sasha stood, wiping her eyes. He held out the ammo for her, and she glanced at him, then him, with a questionable look.

“Just, look, some people are awful, but… some aren’t.” Was all Rhys could think to say, unsure of what else to do or say to comfort her.

Sasha produced a small smile, her eyes drying, as she took the ammo in her hand, “Thanks Rhys…”


End file.
